
Book. 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 

OF 

LAURENCE STERNE 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK BOSTON • CHICAGO 
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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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Laurence Sterne 
From a painting by Gainsborough in the Salford Art Galleries 



The Life and Times 

of 

Laurence Sterne 



By 
WILBUR L. CROSS 

Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School 
of Yale University 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1909 

All rights reserved 



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Copyright, 1909 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Printed May, 1909 



The MASON-HENRY Pres? 

SYRACUSE, N. Y. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS I 

Two Cocies Received 



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MAY 191909 

Copyrmnt i-Intr 



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PREFACE 

This book aims to present, within reasonable compass, the 
personal history of Laurence Sterne, along with some account 
of the numerous men and women with whom he associated at 
home and abroad. Hence it has been called, after an old 
fashion for similar biographies, "The Life and Times of 
Laurence Sterne". 

The title-page should be sufficient warning to the reader 
not to expect here a series of essays on the different aspects of 
Sterne's humour, or elaborate comparisons between Sterne 
and the humourists before and since his time. Masterly dis- 
quisitions of this kind we have already from Bagehot, Traill, 
and Watts-Dunton, not to mention briefer critical opinions 
from Thackeray, Coleridge, and Carlyle, My main purpose 
has been biographical. The questions ever before me have 
been: What sort of man was Sterne? How did he conduct 
himself in the days of his obscurity and after he had come 
into his fame? What did he do and what did he say? 
What books did he read ? What were his pastimes ? and what 
were his pleasures ? Who were his friends ? and who were his 
enemies, if he had any? And what did they say or think of 
him? In a word, wherein lay the secret of the man whose 
speech and conduct filled the imaginations of all who knew 
him intimately, whether at York, London, or Paris? These 
questions, forsooth, would be without much interest, as Nepos 
once remarked in a similar case, were not Sterne the author 
of two books which give him a large place in modern litera- 
ture, perhaps by the side of Rabelais and Cervantes. Cer- 
tainly the publication of Tristram Shandy and of the Senti- 
mental Journey must be kept in mind as the great incidents 
in Sterne's life. Towards them and his other works must 
converge all personal details. It is only because of these 
books that a biographer can surely count upon a curiosity to 
know something about the personality of him who wrote them. 
But if it turns out, as it will, that Tristram Shandy and the 



vi PREFACE 

Sentimental Journey are in part autobiography, and that 
their author was as strange a compound of whims as are 
they, then new points of vantage may be gained for viewing 
and judging Sterne stage by stage in his career, and for 
presenting a final portrait of the man in relation to his 
works. 

The materials for a life of Sterne, though not abundant, 
are quite adequate at most points. For his childhood, we 
have the memoirs which he wrote out for his daughter just 
before his death. For the period covering his life as Pre- 
bendary of York and Vicar of Sutton, we have a series of 
letters to a friend; a long letter to his uncle, amounting 
almost to an autobiography ; a body of anecdotes collected by 
one who, as a boy, tagged at his heels and listened to his jests 
by the fireside after supper; and a series of local pamphlets 
in an amusing warfare to which the Yorkshire parson con- 
tributed the chief merriment. For Sterne in his fame, we 
have nearly two hundred letters to various friends; many 
references to him in the newspapers and in contemporary 
memoirs and correspondence; a journal extending over six 
important months of the year before his death; and the 
observations of a French Academician, who closely watched 
him in and out of the Parisian salons, conversed with him on 
various occasions, and wrote down his impressions of the 
Chevalier Sterne. Finally, there are the portraits of Sterne 
by the great painters of the age, who invited him to their 
tables, studied him there under the most favourable condi- 
tions, and asked him to sit to them the next morning. 

Nevertheless a life of Sterne has proved no easy task for 
several reasons. In the first place it has been a slow process 
to collect materials which lie dispersed in many books, docu- 
ments, and manuscripts. True, this work had been per- 
formed to some extent by others; but the current biography 
of Sterne in two volumes is so untrustworthy in all details, 
that any reliance upon it would have meant disaster. The 
sketch of Sterne by Mr. Sidney Lee in the Dictionary of 
National Biography is admirable in those parts for which the 
author consulted manuscripts near at hand, but it suffers 
elsewhere from a repetition of old errors, which, once in print, 



PEEFACE vii 

seem destined to thrive forever. It would, however, be ungen- 
erous not to acknowledge many obligations to all who have 
written upon Sterne since the time of Scott. Without the 
aid of Mr. Lee's excellent bibliography, my undertaking, 
difficult as it has been, would have been much more difficult. 
Again, the question how far Tristram Shandy and the 
Sentimental Journey are a rendering of actual incidents in 
Sterne's personal history must be always present, though it 
can never be quite answered; for all that a biographer can 
expect is corroborative evidence here and there from external 
sources. Whether he goes right or wrong in his inferences 
from such facts as are at his command, depends partly upon 
his judgment, and partly upon his conception of Sterne's 
character, which may be either true or false. No one can 
ever feel quite sure of himself in dealing with these apparent 
correspondences. He knows that incidents in Sterne's life, 
all the way from boyhood down to near death, are in 
Sterne's books; but he knows also that they are entangled 
with much that is extraneous. The cautious and yet very 
large use that I have made of Tristram Shandy and of the 
Sentimental Journey will appear justified, I trust, in the 
course of the narrative. 

Moreover, Sterne's correspondence, upon which a biog- 
rapher must mainly depend, has survived in a wretched con- 
dition. The early collections of his letters contain forgeries 
which must be sifted out. In letters for the most part genuine, 
passages have been suppressed and replaced by new ones. 
Names of correspondents and of persons mentioned within 
the letters are commonly indicated by an initial or two; and 
at times there is no clue to them at all, unless one may read 
a line of stars into a name. In a similar but not identical 
fashion, Sterne's correspondence as published in later times 
has been interpolated or modified in phrasing, apparently in 
order to make out of the humourist a man more reckless in 
his speech than he really was, to give piquancy, as it were, to 
his character, as if it needed any. Were there space here, it 
would be interesting to illustrate in detail how this has been 
done. A passage, for example, in one of the letters to the 
Rev. John Blake was deleted by the editor of the series, and 



viii PREFACE 

compensation was made for the loss by inserting a phrase 
which does not occur anywhere in the original. In other 
cases, a letter in its published form may be quite at variance 
with the manuscript. Soon after reaching London in 1760, 
Sterne wrote, for instance, a gay note to Richard Berenger, 
master of horse to George the Third, requesting that he ride 
out to Leicester Fields and ask Hogarth for a frontispiece 
to the new edition of Tristram Shandy. The following 
is the letter as Sterne copied it into his Letter-Book* for 
preservation : 

"My dear Berenger, 

' ' You bid me tell you all my wants what the duce can 

the man want now? what would I not give to have but ten 
strokes of Howgarth's witty chissel at the front of my next 
Edition of Tristram Shandy [the Vanity of a pretty woman 
in the hey-day of her Triumphs, is a Fool to the vanity of a 

successful author orna me, sigh'd Swift to Pope, 

unite something of yours to mine to wind us together in one 

sheet down to posterity 1 will, I will; said Pope but 

you dont do it enough said Swift 

"Now the loosest Sketch in nature of Trim's reading the 
sermon to my father & my uncle Toby will content me 

"I would hold out my lank purse — I would shut my eyes 
— & you should put your hand into it & take out what 

[you] liked for it Blockhead ! this gift is not bought with 

money perish thee & thy gold with thee. 

"What shall we do? I would not propose a disagreeable 

thing to one I so much admire, for the whole world : You 

are a hard faced, impudent, honest dog prithee stop & 

sans menagement, begin thus, 

" 'Mr. Hogarth, my friend Shandy' but go on your 

own way as I shall do mine, all my Life, 

"So adieu." 

After lying hidden for more than a century, the letter 
appeared in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's Life of Sterne,\ expanded 
and ornamented to read as follows : 

* Morgan Manuscripts. 

t Vol. I. 160-61 (London, 1896). 



PEEFACE i x 

"You bid me tell you all my wants. What the Devil in 
Hell can a fellow want now? By the Father of the Sciences 
(you know his name) I would give both my ears (if I was 
not to lose my credit by it) for no more than ten strokes of 
Howgarth's witty chisel, to clap at the Front of my next 
Edition of Shandy. The Vanity of a Pretty Girl in the 
Heyday of her Roses & Lilies is a fool to that of Author of 
my stamp. Oft did Swift sigh to Pope in these words: 
'Orna me, unite something of yours to mine, to transmit us 
down together hand in hand to futurity.' The loosest sketch 
in Nature, of Trim's reading the sermon to my Father, &c, 
wd do the Business, and it wd mutually illustrate his System 
and mine. But, my dear Shandy, with what face I would 
hold out my lank Purse ! I would shut my Eyes, & you 
should put in your hand and take out what you liked for it. 
Ignoramus! Fool! Blockhead! Symoniack! This Grace is 
not to be bought with money. Perish thee and thy Gold with 
thee ! What shall we do ? I have the worst face in the world 
to ask a favour with, & ^besides, I would not propose a dis- 
agreeable thing to one I so much admire for the whole world ; 

but you can say anything you are an impudent, honest 

Dog, & can 'st set a face upon a bad matter ; prithee sally out 
to Leicester fields, & when you have knock 'd at the door (for 
you must knock first) and art got in, begin thus: 'Mr. 
Hogarth, I have been with my friend Shandy this morning;' 
but go on yr own way, as I shall do mine. I esteem you, & 
am, my dear Mentor, Yrs most Shandascally, L. Sterne." 

Two versions of the same letter differing so greatly as 
these, are very perplexing as well as very amusing. Did 
Sterne, in copying out the letter, tone it down? or has the 
original manuscript been expanded and vulgarised by other 
hands? These questions could be answered only by an in- 
spection of the manuscript which Mr. Fitzgerald derived 
from a source not mentioned in his Life of Sterne. As the 
safer way, it has been my custom, in all doubtful cases, to 
quote from an autograph manuscript, even though it may not 
represent the letter as it actually passed through the post. 

It is hardly necessary to say that I can have no motive 
for representing Sterne otherwise than in the habit as he 



x PEEFACE 

lived. Had I any motive to the contrary, I should be dis- 
armed by the humourist himself, who said famously : " If the 
characters of past ages and men are to be drawn at all, they 
should be drawn like themselves; that is with their excel- 
lencies, and with their foibles." I have not spared Sterne 
nor have I idealised him. That the truth might be told, 
whether it be for or against his character, I have examined 
all available manuscripts which have come to my knowledge. 
The largest single collection is at the British Museum, whose 
officers have granted me the usual privileges for having them 
copied or photographed. The story of Mrs. Draper's life and 
of her friendship with Sterne was rendered possible only by 
the courtesy of Lord Basing, who placed at my disposal Mrs. 
Draper's unpublished correspondence and other documents 
preserved at Hoddington. A part of the Letter-Book in 
which Sterne copied out letters which he particularly liked, 
whether his own or from his friends, has been recently ac- 
quired by J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., who generously gave me 
access to it. This old book, besides containing several inter- 
esting letters which have never been published, proved the 
authenticity of more than thirty other letters long supposed 
to be forgeries. The originals or copies of one or more letters 
were also supplied by Mr. Alfred Huth of London, Mr. A. H. 
Joline of New York City, Mr. W. K. Bixby of St. Louis, 
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons and Messrs. Dodd, Mead & 
Co., of New York City, and Messrs. Eobson and Co. and 
Messrs. Henry Sotheran and Co., of London. In quoting from 
these and other private manuscripts, I have aimed to keep well 
within the bounds set by their owners. All excerpts from origi- 
nal letters have been printed as Sterne or Mrs. Draper wrote 
them, save that numerals and abbreviations have been written 
out in full, and occasional changes have been made in capitals 
and punctuation where the one or the other appeared very 
awkward or very obscure. In all this, I have remembered, 
though I could not always follow it to the letter, Sterne's 
injunction to his printer: "That, at your peril, you do not 
presume to alter or transpose one Word, nor rectify one false 
Spelling, nor so much as add or diminish one Comma or 
Tittle". 



PBEFACE x i 

Underlying this account of the humourist's life, especially 
of his life in the north, is information derived from local 
records and newspapers. The Institutions of the Diocese of 
York and the Act Book of the Dean and Chapter not only 
shed light upon the details of Sterne's ecclesiastical appoint- 
ments, but they also serve to identify many of his friends at 
York. The parish book at Sutton is curious for its Shandean 
entries; and the memorials of deeds in the Registry Office at 
Northallerton reveal Sterne's dealings in land. In this con- 
nection, I have to thank especially the Rev. Canon Watson 
of the Minster Library, by whose aid was discovered the first 
edition of Sterne's Political Romance. The library contains 
also many local pamphlets indispensable to the biographer, 
and a file of the York Courant, covering nearly the entire 
period of Sterne's active life. I should not forget, too, for 
their assistance, Dr. George A. Auden, of Birmingham, Mr. 
A. H. Hudson, Registrar of the Diocese of York, the late 
T. B. Whytehead, Clerk of the Dean and Chapter, and 
Mr. William Brown, F.S.A., of Thirsk, with his exact know- 
ledge of local conditions in the eighteenth century. I am 
indebted to Mr. W. W. Smith of Lincoln for Sterne 's appoint- 
ment to St. Ives, as recorded in the Act Book of the Bishop 
of Lincoln, and to Mr. Edwin Abbott, Librarian of Jesus 
College, for all entries relative to Sterne in the college 
register. 

It has been a part of my plan to bring together all the 
great portraits of Sterne and to make selections from the 
most interesting among the rest. Such a collection would 
have been impossible but for the courtesy of the owners of the 
original paintings. Lord Lansdowne granted permission to 
photograph the painting by Reynolds at Lansdowne House. 
It is a soberer face than that of any of the engravings after 
the portrait, which are really caricatures of Sterne. The 
Earl of Yarborough likewise gave permission to reproduce 
the bust in terra-cotta executed by Nollekens when Sterne* 
was at Rome; but at the last moment it became necessary to 
employ for this purpose a photograph of the marble replica 
at Skelton Castle. The portrait after Gainsborough has 
been made directly from the original painting in the Art 



x ii PREFACE 

Galleries of the Peel Park Museum at Salford, by permission 
of the Corporation. This beautiful painting, in which Sterne 
appears dressed in the height of fashion, has never before 
been engraved. Nor is any engraving known to exist of the 
youthful portrait by Ramsay in the Hall of Jesus College, 
Cambridge, which is reproduced here by permission of the 
Master and Fellows. 

No less interesting is Sterne as he appeared to a French- 
man, in the water-colour by Carmontelle, now in the collection 
of the Due d'Aumale at Chantilly. It has been reproduced 
for this book after an especially fine engraving made in 1890 
by Messrs. Colnaghi and Company of London. A print of the 
curious caricature of Sterne by Thomas Bridges of York, the 
original of which is either lost or carefully kept from the 
public, was supplied by Dr. George A. Auden of Birmingham. 
To make the list complete, I should mention two other por- 
traits of Sterne in the eighteenth century, — one by Napoleon 
Thomas and the other by Hopkins. The former was engraved 
by Ferdinand and the latter by Heath. Neither portrait, 
however, adds anything to our knowledge of Sterne 's appear- 
ance, for both Thomas and Hopkins were born too late to 
have any personal acquaintance with the humourist. In the 
text I have also described a second and almost unknown por- 
trait by Reynolds. It is in no way comparable with the 
painter's masterpiece, and for that reason it has not been 
included among the illustrations of this work. The engrav- 
ing of Hall-Stevenson — Sterne's other self — has been made 
from a photograph of a very fine portrait, which was sent me 
by W. H. A. Wharton, Esq., of Skelton Castle. 

A descriptive bibliography of Sterne's manuscripts and 
published works will be found in the Appendix. 

In conclusion, I have to thank Miss E. J. Hastings of 
London for her faithful and most intelligent aid while col- 
lecting material for this book. The proofs have been kindly 
read by Mr. Andrew Keogh of Yale University Library. 

March 18, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Birth and Education 3 

II. Marriage and Settlement at Sutton-on-the-Forest 36 

III. Politics and Honours 67 

IV. Quarrel with his Uncle 87 

V. Pastimes and Friendships 104 

VI. The Parson in his Library 130 

VII. A Good Warm Watch-Coat 153 

VIII. The Publication of Tristram Shandy: Volumes I and II. . . 178 

IX. The Sermons of Mr. Yorick 210 

X. Shandy Hall. Tristram Shandy: Volumes III and IV... 233 

XI. Shandy Hall Continued. Tristram Shandy: Volumes V 

and VI 257 

XII. Paris 271 

XIII. Journey to Toulouse 293 

XIV. A Gentleman of France 308 

XV. Yorkshire and London. Tristram Shandy: Volumes VTI 

and VIII 330 

XVI. Yorkshire and London Continued. Sermons: Volumes III 

and IV 344 

XVII. The Tour of Italy 360 

XVIII. The Last Volume of Tristram Shandy 386 

XIX. The Journal to Eliza 403 

XX. The Sentimental Journey 433 

XXI. Illness and Death 456 

XXII. Lydia and her Mother. Posthumous Sermons and Letters 470 

XXIII. Mrs. Draper 496 

Conclusion 511 

Appendix 524 

Index 539 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO FACE PAGE 

Laurence Sterne Frontispiece x 

From a painting by Gainsborough in the Salford Art Galleries. 

Laurence Sterne 36 y 

From a painting by Ramsay at Jesus College, Cambridge. 

Thomas Bridges and Laurence Sterne 104 y 

Skelton Castle 130 ' 

From the frontispiece to Crazy Tales. 

Laurence Sterne 210 

From a painting by Reynolds at Lansdowne House. 

Laurence Sterne 288 

From a water colour by Carmontelle at Chantilly. 

Laurence Sterne 381 

From the replica of a bust by Nollekens at Skelton Castle. 

John Hall-Stevenson 470 

From a painting at Skelton Castle. 



XV 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 

OF 

LAURENCE STERNE 



CHAPTER I 

BIKTH AND EDUCATION 
1713-1736 

The great humourist whose life I have undertaken to 
relate anew, would have been amused by a serious attempt to 
discover him among his ancestors. Musty records preserved 
religiously by his Yorkshire neighbours, that they might the 
more readily boast the achievements of a great-grandfather, 
interested him, it is true, greatly; but only because they fur- 
nished matter for jest. His Tristram Shandy is, as all 
readers of it know, a burlesque history of a typical English 
family (much like Sterne's own) that gained its rank in the 
time of Henry the Eighth, and subsequently sank under the 
disgrace of flat noses and inauspicious names. The Shandys 
could claim in the sixteenth century,, says Sterne with near 
reference to himself, "no less than a dozen alchymists, ' ' 
whose souls passed on, a century or two later, into an arch- 
bishop, a Welsh judge, "some three or four aldermen", and 
eventually into a mountebank. His more ideal self, which 
bears the name of Parson Yorick, the humourist aptly derived 
in direct line from Shakespeare's Yorick of Denmark, whose 
"flashes of merriment were wont to set the table on a roar" 
far back in the days of the good King Hamlet. Despite this 
raillery of himself as akin to the old alchemists and court 
jesters, Sterne was glad enough to count among his ancestors 
an Archbishop of York and a succession of country gentlemen 
since the fifteenth century. Long annoyed by scribblers' 
tales about his early life and whence he came, he set down, 
some six months before his death, certain particulars of family 
history and of his boyhood for his daughter Lydia, "in case 
hereafter she should have a curiosity or a kinder motive to 
know them". 

It may well be that Danish blood really flowed in Sterne's 

3 



4 LAURENCE STERNE 

veins as well as in the imaginary Yorick 's ; for the family to 
which he belonged sprang from the yeomanry and minor 
gentry of old East Anglia— Norfolk and Suffolk— and the 
border shires where the Danes settled in great numbers. 
Thence various members of the family migrated to the north 
until Yorkshire became their chief home, while others settled 
in Ireland, establishing there a collateral branch, which 
included John Sterne (1624-1669), the founder of the Irish 
College of Physicians at Dublin, and his son, likewise named 
John (1660-1745), who became in turn Dean of St. Patrick's 
and Bishop of Clogher. The latter figures in literary history 
as an intimate friend of Swift and Stella, whom he enter- 
tained with profuse hospitality. The more learned of the 
family evidently associated their name with the old English 
word steam, dialectical starn to this day, signifying a star- 
ling; for as soon as they rose to rank and wealth, their arms 
appeared, with some variation, as ''gold, a chevron engrailed 
between three crosses flory sable, surmounted with a starling 
in proper colours for a crest". That starling, made captive, 
it will be remembered, was long afterwards brought into the 
Sentimental Journey as the motive for a pathetic discourse 
on the bitterness of slavery. 

Laurence Sterne, the subject of this biography, was in 
direct descent from William Sterne, who was living towards 
the close of Elizabeth's reign at Crop well-Butler, a village 
and manor to the south of Bingham in Nottinghamshire. 
William Sterne was in turn lineally descended, as his arms 
clearly indicate, from the Sternes that had been long seated 
near Cambridge, first at Stapleford and afterwards at Stow- 
cum-Quy, whence issued also the Sternes in Ireland. Ee- 
moter ancestry of the family points especially to the Sternes 
who by marriage with the Gambons came into possession of 
Whitwell Hall in Norfolk under the Lancastrian kings. A 
son of the William Sterne aforementioned, named Simon, 
settled at Mansfield, "a flourishing and genteel market town" 
some miles to the north of Cropwell-Butler, where he married 
Margery, daughter of Gregory Walker and widow of one 
Charles Cartwright. Of the marriage was born, in or near 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 5 

1596, Eichard Sterne, who, becoming Archbishop of York, 
was the first to give distinction to the family name. 

This Richard Sterne, great-grandfather of the humourist, 
was a man who combined shrewd intelligence with that energy 
necessary for making one's way in the world. As a boy 
"two remarkable deliverances" were related of him by the 
old story-tellers. He fell into a sluice which carried him 
beneath a mill-wheel, and tumbled from a church-steeple 
where he was playing at see-saw with another boy; but in 
both cases he escaped unharmed under the guidance of "a 
gracious Providence ' \ He attended the free school at Mans- 
field, whence he passed, at the age of fifteen, to Trinity 
College, Cambridge. After taking the usual degrees in arts, 
he was elected Fellow of Corpus Christi, and for ten years 
thereafter "engaged in the instruction of pupils with credit 
both to himself and to the college". In the meantime, both 
of the great universities honoured him with degrees in 
divinity, and he became well known among ecclesiastics — 
the distinction seems rather grotesque— for a summary of 
"the 3600 faults in our printed Bibles", a feat in line with 
the labours of Scaliger and other learned classical scholars 
of the preceding generation who had awakened wonder by 
the multitude of errors which they were able to discover in 
ancient texts. Early in 1634, the Bishop of Ely, by direction 
of his Majesty, appointed him Master of Jesus College. To 
Sterne's prestige as teacher and scholar was now added that 
of an able administrator. By his efforts among the fellows 
and other friends, funds were raised for various purposes, 
but especially for building "the north side of the outer 
court" of Jesus College, which still stands "as a monument 
to his name". 

The young Master of Jesus — not yet forty years old 
— was, as might be inferred from his position, a most 
ardent supporter of the existing order in church and state. 
Archbishop Laud summoned him to London and enrolled him 
among his chaplains, to say nothing of other substantial 
honours conferred upon him: all, doubtless, with a view to 
having at Cambridge an adherent who could be trusted to 
furnish full and accurate information concerning things 



6 LAUEENCE STEENE 

ecclesiastical. To King Charles and his agents who came 
frequently to Cambridge, Sterne was also equally loyal. In 
the summer of 1642, the king set up his standard at Notting- 
ham and made ready for battle. At that juncture, Sterne 
joined with two other Cambridge masters in collecting and 
sending moneys and plate to his Majesty. Cromwell was on 
the watch, and though the treasure reached the king, the 
masters were surrounded while at prayers in their several 
chapels, and taken up to London; led captive, says the con- 
temporary account, "through Bartholomew Fair, and so far 
as Temple Bar, and back through the city to prison in the 
Tower, on purpose that they might be hooted at or stoned by 
the rabble rout". During three years of imprisonment in 
various places, Sterne was subjected at times to barbarous 
usage, barely escaping transportation; but these were among 
common incidents of the Revolution, as was likewise his 
ejection from the mastership of Jesus College. 

During this dark period Richard Sterne once stepped 
forth to the light to take part in a memorable scene. The 
Revolution was moving on swiftly. The king had been 
defeated at Marston Moor, and Laud was about to go the way 
of Strafford. Scant four days were given the archbishop to 
prepare for death. On Laud's petition to Parliament that 
one of his ancient chaplains might be sent to him to 
administer spiritual comfort, if he must die, Dr. Sterne was 
selected. Sterne was with his friend and patron during the 
last three days of his life, and attended him to the scaffold. 
After reading his last sermon and last public prayer, Laud 
turned toward the block, and, as he did so, he placed the 
manuscript in the hands of his chaplain, that the world might 
have true and faithful copies thereof. Liberated soon after 
this terrible event, Sterne passed many subsequent years in 
seclusion at Stevenage in Hertfordshire, where, save for a 
small pension from one of Laud's friends, he earned a liveli- 
hood by taking pupils. When Charles the Second returned 
to his own, Sterne was among the first to win preferment. 
A few months in his Cambridge mastership once more and 
three years Bishop of Carlisle, he was translated in the spring 
of 1664 to the archbishopric of York, where he sat until his 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 7 

death on June 18, 1683. His body lies buried in the chapel 
of St. Stephen in his own cathedral at York. To his memory 
his grandson Richard erected a marble monument with a 
canopy, beneath which half reclines a mitred figure with the 
head resting upon one of the hands. A fine portrait of the 
archbishop in his splendid robes, a mezzotint by Francis Place 
of York, hangs near Cranmer's over the dais in the hall of 
Jesus College. With eyes curiously askance, the dignified 
prelate looks down the hall, past Coleridge, upon the youthful 
portrait of his great-grandson, as if in question whether he 
should own him. 

It would be impossible to imagine the archbishop sitting 
down to Gargantua or Pantagruel, the nearest approach to 
Tristram Shandy in those days. His face, with no trace of 
humour in it, looks too serious for that. As a young man, 
this Richard Sterne wrote Latin verses and commented upon 
the Psalms. Later in life he bore a hand in Brian Walton's 
Polyglot Bible involving nine languages, and subsequently 
assisted in a revision of the Book of Common Prayer. After 
his death appeared a Latin treatise of his on logic, with illus- 
trations drawn mostly from the Scriptures; and to him has 
been long attributed, though doubtfully, the authorship of 
The Whole Duty of Man. While Archbishop of York, he 
made many friends and many enemies. To those who agreed 
with him "he was a man of eminent worth and abilities ". 
"He was", says a letter from York just after his death, 
"greatly respected and generally lamented. All the clergy 
commemorate his sweet condescensions, his free communica- 
tions, faithful counsels, exemplary temperance, cheerful hos- 
pitality and bountiful charity".* On the other hand, Burnet 
regarded him as only "a sour, ill-tempered" ecclesiastic, who, 
after gaining the see of York, "minded chiefly the enriching 
of his family". As a politician, it is said further, he was 
more than ordinarily compliant in his last years to the Court 
and to the Duke of York ; wherefore came the suspicion that 
he was at heart a Papist. Baxter, who clashed with him in 

* Nicolson and Burn, History of Antiquities of Westmoreland and 
Cumberland, II, 290 (London, 1777). In contrast, see Burnet, His- 
tory of his own Times, II, 208 (London, 1818) ; and Reliquiae Bax- 
terianae, part II, 338 (London, 1696). 



3 LAURENCE STERNE 

debate at the Savoy Conference over a reformed liturgy, was 
surprised to find deceit concealed by a face that "look'd so 
honestly and gravely and soberly". Although these adverse 
opinions of two eminent divines were no doubt coloured by 
political and religious dislike, they nevertheless point to a 
truth. Richard Sterne was a conspicuous example among the 
clergy of the Restoration whose ideals of church dignity and 
ecclesiastical polity had been derived from Archbishop Laud. 
To the new age they appeared narrow and bigoted. Like his 
famous descendant, the archbishop was also irritable and 
hasty in temper, and prone to provoke a quarrel. Edward 
Rainbowe, who succeeded him at Carlisle, found the episcopal 
palace barely habitable and instituted a suit against him for 
dilapidations. While he held the see of York, Sterne cer- 
tainly amassed a fortune, but not, as Burnet charges, wholly 
for his own benefit or that of his family. The archbishop's 
benefactions were numerous and liberal. From his own 
purse he contributed, for example, £1800 towards the rebuild- 
ing of St. Paul's Cathedral after the great fire; and some 
years before his death he founded, by an annual rent charge 
of £60 on his manors in Yorkshire, six scholarships at Cam- 
bridge—four at Jesus College and two at Corpus Christi— 
for natives of Nottingham and Yorkshire. One of these 
scholarships was to come in the course of time to the author 
of Tristram Shandy. 

The archbishop had married, sometime in middle life, a 
woman who was his junior by some years— Elizabeth, daugh- 
ter of Edward Dickenson, lord of the manor of Farnborough, 
Hampshire, who bore him thirteen children. She died on 
March 6, 1673-4, at the age of fifty-eight, while on a visit to 
London, and was buried with her family at Farnborough. 
At his own death, ten years later, the archbishop divided his 
comfortable estates among his three surviving sons.* The 
eldest son Richard, to whom fell the largest share, married 
and took as his seat Kilvington Hall, near Thirsk and within 
the district where Laurence Sterne was eventually to hold 
several church livings. He was a justice of the peace and 

* The will was signed and sealed on April 14, 1683. — Registry of 
Wills at York. 



BIETH AND EDUCATION 9 

represented Ripon in one or more Parliaments under Charles 
the Second. Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, who passed five 
days with him in the coach up to London, found him "very 
good company (not so hot as I feared, being the archbishop's 
son)".* William, the second son of the archbishop, besides 
inheriting "lands and tenements" at Ryther in the fertile 
valley of the Wharfe, was bequeathed five hundred pounds. 
He married Frances, daughter of William Cartwright of Nor- 
manton, and settled at Mansfield on the estate of his grand- 
father. The third son, known as Simon Sterne of Halifax, 
received by the terms of his father's will, in lieu of lands, 
five hundred pounds outright, three hundred pounds in East 
India stock, and a remission of his debts to the archbishop. 
This Simon Sterne of Halifax, who seems to have been 
improvident in his youth, was the grandfather of Laurence 
Sterne. 

At this point another strain in the descent of the hu- 
mourist becomes of especial interest. Simon Sterne married, 
to his great good fortune, Mary Jaques, heiress to a large 
estate at Elvington, near York on the river Derwent. Her 
grandfather, Sir Roger Jaques, was a prosperous merchant 
and alderman of York back in the time of the first Stuarts. 
A staunch loyalist in a city where the loyalists predominated, 
he rose, in 1639, to the honourable post of Lord Mayor, and 
was knighted in that year by King Charles while resting at 
York on his way north against the Scots, Roger Jaques had 
been aided, no doubt, in his career, gaining thereby social 
position as well as wealth, by marrying into the Rawdons, one 
of the oldest and richest of the northern families. The Mary 
Rawdon whose hand he succeeded in winning, was the 
daughter of a certain Laurence Rawdon, who settled at York 
during the last years of Elizabeth, and made a fortune in 
trade. Her brother was the Marmaduke Rawdon who wrote 
an agreeable account of travels in Britain and on the Conti- 
nent, t In the glimpses given of her by Marmaduke in his 
book, Lady Jaques, as she was always called, appears as a 

* Thoresby, Diary, I, 154 (London, 1830). 

t Life of Marmaduke Rawdon, edited by Eobert Davies for the 
Camden Society (London, 1863). 



10 LAURENCE STERNE 

charming, well-bred woman, who was careful to live in 
accordance with her station. She goes up to London with 
her husband to see the " rarities'', including a visit with a 
merry company to the Eoyal Sovereign, a big ship, newly 
built and lying down the river; they have an audience with 
the king and queen at Greenwich; and thoroughly tired out 
with a month's feasting among relatives and friends, Lady 
Jaques is glad to get back to Yorkshire once more. During 
her last years — she survived her husband — she passed her 
time between Elvington and her house on the Pavement, then 
one of the fashionable streets at York. She kept a coach 
and might be seen on a fine day taking the air in it, accom- 
panied by a blackamoor running along by the side. It is 
altogether a delightful picture such as one ought to find 
somewhere among the ancestors of Laurence Sterne. 

The Mary Jaques whom Simon Sterne married was the 
granddaughter of this genteel and vivacious Mary Eawdon. 
Her brother Roger dying without issue, she succeeded as his 
heir to the lordship of Elvington. With £1800 Simon Sterne 
purchased Woodhouse, a large estate at Skircoat to the south- 
west of Halifax, with an Elizabethan mansion looking across 
the beautiful valley of the Calder. Nothing very distinctive 
has been gleaned about him. He was a justice of the peace 
and governor of a charity for the poor of Halifax. He died 
at Woodhouse Hall, "having undergone a severe salivation 
for a cancer in the mouth", and was buried at Halifax on 
April 17, 1703. He left three sons and three daughters. To 
Richard, the eldest son, born in 1680, descended the estates 
at Elvington and Woodhouse. In the November following 
his father's death, Richard married Dorothy, daughter of 
Thomas Priestley of Halifax and widow of Samuel Lister 
of Shibden Hall, two miles to the northeast of Halifax, where 
he resided for several years. His first wife dying, he married 
in 1714 Esther, daughter and heiress of Mr. Timothy Booth 
of Halifax. Most fortunate in his marriages, he grew to be 
the wealthiest of the Sternes, possessing, besides his inherited 
estates, lands at Ovenden and Hipperholme. He bore the 
chief hand in reorganising the grammar school at Skircoat, 
of which the Archbishop of York appointed him one of the 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION ±± 

governors. He was also a governor of a similar foundation 
at Hipperholme. Hot and litigious in temper, he became 
involved in several law suits and in a bitter quarrel with the 
vicar of his parish, who refused him the Sacrament. He died 
suddenly at Bradford on October 9, 1732, while on his way to 
York, and was buried at Halifax. He is the uncle who took 
in little Laurence at Woodhouse and sent him to school. The 
third son of Simon Sterne, named Jaques and born in 1695 
or 1696, will enter these memoirs at a later stage, as the 
violent Precentor of York who first helped his nephew and 
then turned against him in great bitterness. Between 
Richard and Jaques, was born, about 1692, Roger Sterne, 
the father of the humourist.* 

To Roger Sterne, as a younger brother, there were open 
three obvious careers. He might have married, like so many 
of his ancestors, an heiress and settled in Yorkshire as a 
country gentleman. He might have gone like his brother 
Jaques to the university, and have easily secured a place in 
the Church within the patronage of some relative or friend of 
the family . Finally there was the army. He chose the army 
as in more accord, no doubt, with a roving disposition. 
Among the crack regiments raised in 1702, on the outbreak 
of the war with France and Spain, known in history as the 
War of the Spanish Succession, was the Thirty-Fourth or the 
Cumberland Regiment of Foot. Its first colonel was Robert, 
Lord Lucas, and among the captains was Richard Steele, the 
wit and essayist. The men, as one may view them in old plates, 
made a smart appearance in their tri-cornered hats, long 
scarlet coats richly trimmed with yellow, and white gaiters 
reaching above the knees. Under their second colonel, Hans 
Hamilton, who succeeded Lord Lucas in 1705, they proved 
their mettle in Spain during and after the siege of Barcelona, 

* The older pedigrees of the Sterne family have been corrected, 
revised, and enlarged in the Publications of the Harleian Society. See 
especially in this series Familiae Minorum Gentium, II, 516-17 ; the 
Visitations of Nor folic in 1563 and 1613 ; and the Visitations of Cam- 
bridge in 1575 and 1619. Miscellaneous information is to be found in 
the Northowram or Coley 'Register, edited by J. Horsfall Turner 
(London, 1881). None of the pedigrees give the date of birth for 
Roger Sterne; nor is it contained in the parish registers either at 
Halifax or Elvington. 



12 LAURENCE STERNE 

where they were terribly cut up in a gallant charge against 
the French. With the prestige won in Spain, the regiment 
returned to England in 1707 to recruit; and the next year 
it was ordered north on the alarm of an invasion of Scotland 
by the French in favour of the Stuart Pretender. For several 
months the Thirty-Fourth was stationed at Leeds, and while 
there it may have gained, among its new recruits of 1708, 
Roger Sterne, then a mere stripling not more than sixteen 
years old. In 1709, the regiment was sent over to the 
Netherlands, where it was engaged for some months in gar- 
rison duty, owing, says the chronicle,* to the fact that it was 
composed mostly of "young soldiers". The next year it joined 
the main army of Marlborough. At the siege of Douay, it 
was "employed on duty in the trenches, carrying on the ap- 
proaches, repulsing the sallies of the garrison, and storming 
the outworks", in all of which it repeatedly distinguished 
itself. On the conclusion of peace at Utrecht in 1713, the 
Thirty-Fourth was withdrawn with other regiments to Eng- 
land and soon afterwards it was reduced. But on the up- 
rising of the Scots in 1715 under the Earl of Mar, the 
regiment was reformed with Thomas Chudleigh as colonel, 
who had in fact succeeded Hans Hamilton before the Peace 
of Utrecht. Among the new officers appears the name of Roger 
Sterne as one of nine ensigns. After varied service in 
Ireland, the restored regiment took part in the siege and 
capture of Vigo, in various operations in Flanders, and in 
the defence of Gibraltar. Under Chudleigh as well as under 
Hamilton, the Thirty-Fourth was conspicuous for its bravery 
in the field and "its good conduct in quarters". 

Notwithstanding his long service, Roger Sterne attained 
to no high place in the army. To the last he seems to have 
been only a poor ensign, improvident and good-natured. 
He was described by his son, it should be said in passing, as 
"Lieutenant in Handaside's regiment", which was the 
Twenty-Second. But the statement about his rank as well 
as his regiment was likely an error of memory. At the out- 
set of his career the ensign made a most unfortunate mar- 

* Richard Cannon, Historical Record of the Thirty-Fourth, or The 
Cumberland Regiment of Foot (London, 1844). 



BIETH AND EDUCATION 13 

riage. Hitherto the Sternes had for generations allied 
themselves with the best families among the minor gentry. 
Now entered their blood the taint of commonness and vul- 
garity. Following the army in Flanders was "a noted 
sutler" named Nuttle, who was father or stepfather— it is 
uncertain which— to Agnes Hebert, "widow of a captain of 
a good family". Roger Sterne was in debt to Nuttle, and, 
to quit the score, he relieved the sutler of further support 
of his wife's daughter, by marrying her on September 25, 
1711. The story of Roger Sterne and his family subsequent 
to this disastrous marriage is related in the brief memoir that 
the humourist wrote out for his daughter Lydia. The pathetic 
narrative is interwoven with the birth of Laurence and other 
children, and with those movements of the regiment which 
we have outlined in advance for the sake of clearness. 

"This Nuttle", says the memoir, after telling why Roger 
Sterne married Agnes Hebert, "had a son by my grand- 
mother—a fine person of a man but a graceless whelp— what 
became of him I know not.— The family (if any left), live 
now at Clonmel in the south of Ireland, at which town I was 
born November 24th, 1713, a few days after my mother 
arrived from Dunkirk.— My birth-day was ominous to my 
poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many 
other brave officers broke, and sent adrift into the wide world 
with a wife and two children— the elder of which was Mary ; 
she was born in Lisle in French Flanders, July the tenth, one 
thousand seven hundred and twelve, New Stile.— This child 
was most unfortunate— she married one "Weemans in Dublin 
—who used her most unmercifully— spent his substance, be- 
came a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself, 
—which she was able to do but for a few months, for she 
went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken 
heart. She was a most beautiful woman— of a fine figure, 
and deserved a better fate.— The regiment, in which my 
father served, being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was 
able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to 
the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother 
lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. 
There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment 



14 LAURENCE STEENE 

was established, and our household decamped with bag and 
baggage for Dublin— within a month of our arrival, my 
father left us, being ordered to Exeter, where, in a sad 
winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travel- 
ling from Liverpool by land to Plymouth. (Melancholy 
description of this journey not necessary to be transmitted 
here.) In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin. — 
My mother, with three of us, (for she laid in at Plymouth of 
a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a 
narrow escape from being cast away by a leak springing up 
in the vessel.— At length, after many perils, and struggles, 
we got to Dublin.— There my father took a large house, fur- 
nished it, and in a year and a half's time spent a great deal 

of money. 

"In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, 
all unhing'd again; the regiment was ordered, with many 
others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in 
the Vigo expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and 
were driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol, from 
thence by land to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Weight- 
where I remember we stayed encamped some time before the 
embarkation of the troops— (in this expedition from Bristol 
to Hampshire we lost poor Joram— a pretty boy, four years 
old, of the small-pox), my mother, sister, and myself, remained 
at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo Expedition, and until 
the regiment had got back to Wicklow in Ireland, from 
whence my father sent for us.— We had poor Joram 's loss 
supplied during our stay in the Isle of Wight, by the birth 
of a girl, Anne, born September the twenty-third, one thou- 
sand seven hundred and nineteen.— This pretty blossom fell 
at the age of three years, in the barracks of Dublin — she was, 
as I well remember, of a fine delicate frame, not made to last 
long, as were most of my father's babes.— We embarked for 
Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; 
but through the intercessions of my mother, the captain was 
prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a 
month, and at length got into Dublin, and travelled by land 
to Wicklow, where my father had for some weeks given us 
over for lost. — We lived in the barracks at Wicklow, one year, 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 15 

(one thousand seven hundred and twenty) when Devijeher 
(so called after Colonel Devijeher,) was born; from thence 
we decamped to stay half a year with Mr. Fetherston, a 
clergyman, about seven miles from Wicklow, who being a 
relation of my mother's, invited us to his parsonage at 
Animo. — It was in this parish, during our stay, that I had 
that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race whilst 
the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt — the story 
is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland— 

where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me. 

"From hence we followed the regiment to Dublin, where 
we lay in the barracks a year. — In this year, one thousand 
seven hundred and twenty-one, I learned to write, &c. — The 
regiment, ordered in twenty-two, to Carrickfergus in the 
north of Ireland; we all decamped, but got no further than 
Drogheda, thence ordered to Mullengar, forty miles west, 
where by Providence we stumbled upon a kind relation, a 
collateral descendant from Archbishop Sterne, who took us 
all to his castle and kindly entertained us for a year— and 
sent us to the regiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kind- 
nesses, &c. — a most rueful and tedious journey had we all, in 
March, to Carrickfergus, where we arrived in six or seven 
days— little Devijeher here died, he was three years old- 
He had been left behind at nurse at a farmhouse near Wick- 
low, but was fetch 'd to us by my father the summer after— 
another child sent to fill his place, Susan; this babe too left 
us behind in this weary journey— The autumn of that year, 
or the spring afterwards, (I forget which) my father got leave 
of his colonel to fix me at school— which he did near Halifax, 
with an able master; with whom I staid some time, 'till by 
God's care of me my cousin Sterne, of Elvington, became a 
father to me, and sent me to the university, &c. &c. To pur- 
sue the thread of our story, my father's regiment was the 
year after ordered to Londonderry, where another sister was 
brought forth, Catherine, still living, but most unhappily 
estranged from me by my uncle's wickedness, and her own 
folly— from this station the regiment was sent to defend 
Gibraltar, at the siege, where my father was run through the 
body by Captain Phillips, in a duel, (the quarrel begun about 



16 LAURENCE STERNE 

a goose) with much difficulty he survived— tho ' with an im- 
paired constitution, which was not able to withstand the 
hardships it was put to — for he was sent to Jamaica, [with 
his colonel and a part of his regiment] where he soon fell by 
the country fever, which took away his senses first, and made 
a child of him, and then, in a month or two, walking about 
continually without complaining, till the moment he sat 
down in an arm chair, and breathed his last— which was at 
Port Antonio, on the north of the island." 

Of the poor ensign, perhaps just advanced to lieutenant, 
who died under circumstances so distressing, far from home 
sometime in March 1731, the son retained to the last very 
tender recollections. "My father", the narrative goes on to 
say, "was a little smart man— active to the last degree, in all 
exercises— most patient of fatigue and disappointments, of 
which it pleased God to give him full measure— he was in 
his temper somewhat rapid, and hasty— but of a kindly, sweet 
disposition, void of all design; and so innocent in his own 
intentions, that he suspected no one ; so that you might have 
cheated him ten times in a day, if nine had not been sufficient 
for your purpose." At that time Laurence was still in school 
at Halifax and his mother and sister Catherine were living 
with friends in Ireland. On the death of her husband, Mrs. 
Sterne received a pension of £20 a year, and to add to her 
income she afterwards opened an embroidery school. What- 
ever may have been her birth, she proved to be, as will be 
duly related, an ill-bred woman, with whom none of her 
husband's family could associate. But for the moment it is 
more agreeable to let the mind rest upon Roger Sterne, from 
whom passed to his son the volatile temperament of his race 
as we have seen it forming from the archbishop down through 
the Rawdons— vivacious, quick to take an affront, and yet 
withal most kindly. In the man who lost his life for a goose 
surely lurked a humourist. 

Clonmel, the place where Laurence Sterne was born, says 
the memoir, on November 24, 1713, is a small Irish town above 
Waterford, in the valley of the Suir. His mother had come 
there from Dunkirk that her child might be brought forth 
among relatives and friends. He was named Laurence, it 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 17 

would seem, after that distant ancestor we have mentioned— 
Laurence Rawdon, sometime merchant and alderman at York 
and lord of the manor of Elvington. Hard as were the many- 
long journeys and migrations upon the ensign and his wife 
during the subsequent ten years, the period must have been 
most agreeable to the boy himself. There were for him, who 
knew nothing of the tragedy of it, pleasant sojourns in Wales 
and in the Isle of Wight, and a whole year in an Irish castle 
with kind relatives. When he fell through a mill-race, like 
his great-grandfather the archbishop, while the mill was run- 
ning, and came out whole and sound, his mother was upset, 
to be sure, by the incident ; but to Laurie, as the country folk 
crowded about him in wonder at his escape, it was a moment 
of triumph; for he was the hero of an incredible adventure. 
He must have enjoyed, too, the large freedom of barrack 
life in England and in Ireland, however much it may have 
tested the endurance of his mother. There he met with new 
adventures and strange characters, the memory of which 
never left him. In after years, as he sat down in his York- 
shire parsonage to write his book, his childhood all came back 
to him — what he had seen with his own eyes and what his 
father had told him about the first serious engagement of the 
Thirty-Fourth Regiment of Foot in the battle of Wynendale, 
which Count de la Motte would have won, ' ' had he not pressed 
too speedily into the wood", and about the Peace of Utrecht 
which broke my uncle Toby's heart as well as sent Roger 
Sterne adrift in the world. Out of those memories, fortified 
by much reading of Marlborough's campaigns and enriched 
by later observations, came my uncle Toby, Trim, and 
Le Fever. Of no one more than of Sterne is the saying of 
Wordsworth truer that the child is father to the man. 



II 

Having learned to read and write while he lay in the 
barracks of Dublin, the boy was ready, by 1723 or 1724, for 
the rudiments of learning. His father then placed him in 
a grammar school near Halifax, that he might be under the 
eye of his uncle Richard at Woodhouse Hall. At that time 



18 ' LAURENCE STEBNE 

Halifax took the lead in cloth-making among all the towns of 
north England. Defoe, who passed through the parish in his 
tour of Great Britain, was much struck by the thrift of the 
people living in long rows of houses on the hillsides, so 
thickly placed as to be within speaking distance of one 
another. All along in front of the houses were tenters on 
which were stretched pieces of cloth, which, says Defoe, "by 
their Whiteness reflecting the bright Rays of the Sun that 
played upon them, formed, I thought, the most agreeable 
Sight I ever saw".* Sterne is strangely silent in his books 
about this and other novel scenes to which he had been sud- 
denly transferred. Thrift certainly made upon him no 
impression comparable with the gaiety of military life. Per- 
haps he chafed under the restraints of his new surroundings. 
It is a tradition, supported by an incident or two, that the 
boy studied when he liked and got more whippings than 
lessons. It may be that he did not get along well with 
his uncle at Woodhouse Hall, for he nowhere mentions this 
Richard Sterne among the relatives that aided him. But his 
uncle surely gave him shelter and helped pay the expenses of 
his schooling. Though Sterne had nothing to say about his 
uncle, he spoke with respect of the head of the school, 
describing him as "an able master". Whoever he may have 
been, he saw in Sterne a lad of unusual promise; being the 
first, as we say nowadays, to discover him. It was not the 
master but the usher that did the whipping to which reference 
has been made. Sterne himself related the incident, with 
some pride, for his daughter Lydia. The master, says 
Sterne, "had had the cieling of the school-room new white- 
washed — the ladder remained there — I one unlucky day 
mounted it, and wrote with a brush in large capital letters, 
LAU. STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. 
My master was very much hurt at this, and said, before me, 
that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of 
genius, and he was sure I should come to preferment— this 
expression made me forget the stripes I had received." 
The name of the school where this escapade occurred, 

* A Tour through Great Britain, III, 78 (second edition, London, 
1738). 



BIETH AND EDUCATION 19 

Sterne failed to mention. The words of his memoir are 
simply "My father got leave of his colonel to fix me at school 
—which he did near Halifax, with an able master". At that 
time there were, as there are now, two grammar schools near 
Halifax — the one at Heath, to the south of Halifax and 
within easy walking distance from Woodhouse up over the 
moor; the other at Hipperholme, to the east of Halifax and 
across the valley from Shibden Hall. The former was an 
ancient foundation, with a stately building of freestone, dat- 
ing from the fortieth year of Queen Elizabeth. The latter, 
a smaller and less pretentious structure, was founded and 
endowed in 1661 by Matthew Broadley, Esq., of London, 
formerly of Halifax. Both were established for the instruc- 
tion of youth in grammar (Latin and Greek) and other 
literature and learning, and in all those virtues and good 
manners which should be a part of a liberal education. By 
express statute, the masters of both schools were required to 
be able and sufficient persons, holding at least the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts from either Oxford or Cambridge. Of their 
scholars, such private records as may have been kept by the 
masters have all been lost or destroyed. In which school was 
educated the author of Tristram Shandy? 

According to common tradition, at least a century old, 
Sterne prepared for the university at the Grammar School of 
Queen Elizabeth at Heath. A clergyman who attended the 
school between 1808 and 1820, said in a letter to a former 
master: "The legend during the time that I was at Heath 
respecting Sterne was that he was a scholar there, and the 
panel on the ceiling was pointed out, on which he was said 
to have daubed Lau: Sterne". An inscription similar to 
Sterne's, if not the very one, was actually seen and remem- 
bered by John Turney of Leek Wotton, in Warwickshire, 
who passed the year 1809-10 at Heath. Besides noting the 
fact in his copy of Sterne's works, he wrote of it more fully 
thirty-odd years back in a letter to a friend. "The name of 
Sterne", says the letter, "was marked on the cieling of the 
School Room in irregular Characters, as if done by some one 
who knew he was doing wrongly and was fearful of being 
detected in the Act. They were large Letters, say (I speak 



20 LAUEENCE STEENE 

from memory of course) about four and a half inches high, 
all Capitals. They were black as if, as I thought, burnt in 
with a Candle, the smoke from the Candle causing them to be 

black. LAU STERNE was inscribed about three yards from 

the Head Master's desk. It ran obliquely from S. W. with 
rather a turn to the East. ' ' The master of Heath in Sterne 's 
time was a certain Thomas Lister, distantly related to the 
Listers of Shibden Hall. He graduated Bachelor in Medi- 
cine from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1688, and received his 
appointment to the school in the same year. After forty 
years of service, he died in April 1728. On the supposition 
that Sterne was a Heath scholar, this, then, was the master 
who thought him winged for a higher flight than the rest of 
the boys. On the same supposition, the usher who flogged 
Laurence, may perhaps be identified with one Abraham 
Milner, a young man eighteen or twenty years old, who never 
received a degree from either of the great universities, and 
afterwards opened a bookseller's shop at Halifax. 

The case as thus worked out for Heath, is a complete and 
very pretty tale which ought to be true. It really rests, 
however, upon nothing but vague tradition. It may all be 
a legend that has grown up round the mere fact that the 
school was at a convenient distance from the seat of Lau- 
rence's uncle. No one, of course, can be disposed to doubt 
the memory of the old scholar who could recall the Sterne 
inscription on the ceiling. It is, nevertheless, preposterous 
to suppose that the original inscription had survived eighty 
or more years of whitewash and plaster. What the War- 
wickshire gentleman saw and remembered was doubtless the 
freak of some boy of later date, who could not find "LAU 
STERNE" on the ceiling, and so proceeded to put it there. 
To strike more nearly at the heart of the story, the Heath 
Grammar School, so flourishing earlier and since, was, just 
in Sterne's time, in a wretched condition. It had for some 
years been neglected by its governors, who dropped out one 
by one until there was nobody qualified to receive rents or 
to fill up vacancies ; and its statutes, very strict as one reads 
them, had all fallen into abeyance. The master, Thomas 
Lister, was described at his death by a Halifax lawyer as an 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 21 

"old little good for naught fellow", and by others as long 
• ' superannuated ' ' and never efficient. For at least two years 
before his death, his "few petty scholars" were left to the 
usher, who was spoken of with equal contempt. Over this 
state of affairs Richard Sterne became hot as early as 1719, 
when he reported the mismanagement to the Archbishop of 
York, within whose jurisdiction the school lay. After years 
of trouble and expense, the squire succeeded in reorganising 
the school under a revised charter bearing date July 31, 1729. 
A new master, one Christopher Jackson, was appointed in 
1730, but he resigned the next year, either because he disliked 
his position or because he proved incompetent. By that time 
the school days of Laurence Sterne were nearly over. For 
two or three of the seven years that Sterne was at school, the 
master of Heath was superannuated, and for two more there 
was no master at all. It is difficult to imagine that Laurence 
could have been among the "few petty scholars" of this 
period or that he could have regarded as "an able master" 
the man whom another called a "good for naught". It is 
much more likely that Thomas Lister, whom, of course, Sterne 
saw, knew, and heard talked about at Woodhouse, sat for the 
burlesque portrait of that tutor whom Mr. Walter Shandy 
wou]d by no means have for his son Tristram. "The gov- 
ernor", said Mr. Shandy, "I make choice of shall neither 
lisp, or squint, or wink, or talk loud, or look fierce, or foolish ; 
—or bite his lips, or grind his teeth, or speak through his 
nose. * ■* * He shall neither walk fast, — or slow, or fold his 
arms,— for that is laziness;— or hang them down,— for that 
is folly; or hide them in his pocket, for that is nonsense. — 
He shall neither strike, or pinch, or tickle,— or bite, or cut 
his nails * * * or snift, or drum with his feet or fingers in 
company. ' ' 

Around the Free Grammar School at Hipperholme has 
been elaborated no fanciful legend of Laurence Sterne, per- 
haps, as has been indicated, because the school was not so 
near to Woodhouse. But it is an unbroken tradition among 
the Listers of Shibden Hall that Hipperholme was Sterne's 
school. Miss Lister, who was living thirty years ago at an 
advanced age, distinctly remembered "her father telling her 



22 LAUBENCE STEBNE 

that Laurence Sterne used to walk to Hipperholme School 
from his uncle's house along an ancient foot path which 
formerly ran through the yard of Shibden Hall". She said 
further that Sterne was "a frequent visitor" at the Hall, 
when her grandfather, born in the same year as Sterne, was 
a boy. It may be that the aged lady was mistaken. But a 
sober statement like hers, bearing none of the marks of fiction, 
must be accepted, unless there is evidence to the contrary. 
As a matter of fact, Hipperholme exactly fits into what 
Sterne said about his school. It was, said Sterne, "near 
Halifax". Hipperholme is near Halifax, though not so near 
Woodhouse as is Heath. But Sterne did not say "near 
Woodhouse",— that is an added phrase. It was possible for 
him to have walked from his uncle's seat to Hipperholme; 
for if he could find, as he says in Shandy, no short cut to 
learning, he found one to school through the park of Shibden 
Hall. It seems, however, probable that Sterne stayed a good 
deal with his friend and schoolmate at Shibden Hall, and he 
may have lived in the earlier years— his own words would 
bear that interpretation— with the master of Hipperholme, 
going to his uncle for the week ends. 

During the entire period of Sterne 's schooling, the master 
of Hipperholme was a Eeverend Nathan Sharpe, connected 
through the Priestleys with the Listers and with Richard 
Sterne, whose first wife was a Priestley. He was graduated 
Bachelor in Arts from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1695, and 
was appointed to Hipperholme in 1703, where he remained 
till his death thirty years later. A Mr. Sharpe, apparently 
this one, baptised in 1704 the first child of Richard Sterne. 
Another member of the family, Abraham Sharpe, also a 
Cambridge man, whom Richard Sterne addressed as cousin, 
held the curacy of Sowerby Bridge near Woodhouse. Besides 
being a relative of the master of Hipperholme, Richard Sterne 
was also a large landowner in the township and a governor of 
the school. Family interests thus point directly to Hipper- 
holme as the place where Laurence Sterne acquired the rudi- 
ments of learning. When Sterne came to Halifax, Nathan 
Sharpe was still in the prime of life, not above forty-eight 
years of age. So far as can be determined, he managed his 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 23 

school well, fulfilling that requirement of the statutes which 
Sterne but repeated when he referred to his teacher as "an 
able master". Just as Thomas Lister may have been the 
original of that schoolmaster whom the elder Shandy could 
not think of for his son, so Nathan Sharpe may have fur- 
nished hints for the man he was in search of. "I will have 
him, continued my father, chearful, facete, jovial; at the 
same time, prudent, attentive to business, vigilant, acute, 
argute, inventive, quick in resolving doubts and speculative 
questions;— he shall be wise, and judicious, and learned:— 
And why not humble, and moderate, and gentle-tempered, 
* * * said Yorick:" It was certainly a master of this char- 
acter who rebuked his usher for whipping Laurence Sterne 
and by his praise made the boy forget his punishment.* 

After all has been said, there still remains reasonable 
doubt as to where Sterne received his early education. The 
considerations here set forth in favour of Hipperholme estab- 
lish conclusively that Sterne was for a time a scholar there, 
and render it highly probable that he was placed there from 
the first with the able master who was a friend and relative of 
his uncle. But it is possible, though not very probable, that 
he first attended Heath for a year or two, until its affairs 
reached a crisis, and that he was then transferred to Hipper- 
holme. The question could be settled beyond all doubt only 
by the registry of the students of the period, but that, if it 
ever existed, has not survived. The only document that gives 
us a glimpse of Sterne at school is an old exercise book that 
once came to the hands of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, from what 
source he does not say, bearing the title, Synopsis Com- 
munium Locorum ex Poetis Latinis Collecta, written above 
the words ' ' Lau. Sterne, September ye 6, 1725 ' \ As it bears 
in another place the date "1728", if there be no misprint, 
one must infer that Sterne remained in the same school 
through the period covered by the dates, for he would not 
likely be put to the same exercises under different masters. 
It also seems a fair inference that if Sterne was ever at 

* Local traditions concerning Sterne 's school are contained in 
Thomas Cox, A Popular History of the Grammar School of Queen 
Elizabeth, at Heath, near Halifax (Halifax, 1879). 



24 LAURENCE STERNE 

Heath, he remained for only a short time, migrating to 
Hipperholme as early as 1725. The old ''clogged eared vol- 
ume", as described by Mr. Fitzgerald, shows that Laurence 
idled a good deal over his lessons, stopping to play, much like 
Shakespeare's schoolboy, over declensions which are made 
to include Nickibus Nonkebus and rorum varum. Here and 
there occur the names of Sterne's schoolmates, as "John 
Turner", "Richard Carr, ejus liber", "Bill Copper", and 
"I owe Samuel Thorpe one halfpenny but I will pay him 
to-day". Elsewhere it is said that "labour takes panes". 
In one place appears a stave of notes with the names written 
below and signed "L. S.". Most interesting as a clue to 
Sterne's taste then and in after life are the rude drawings 
scattered over many of the pages. Mingled with owls, cocks, 
and hens, are several heads of women, and curiously dressed 
soldiers with sugar-loaf caps, short-stock guns, and straps, 
such as he remembered from barrack life. There is "a 
drummer ", " a piper ' ', and over one ' ' long-nosed, long chinned 
face" is written "This is Lorence".* 

Notwithstanding the time spent in scribbling over his 
copybooks, Sterne then laid the foundation of a ready know- 
ledge of the classical literatures. He learned to read and 
write Latin with great facility. Nearly all the authors in 
the usual curriculum of the period, he at some time quoted 
or referred to, evidently from memory. Horace came into 
his books perhaps more often than the rest. But Cicero, 
Pliny, Hesiod, and Isocrates are there also. Three other 
ancients touched his emotions deeply. It grieved him to 
think that "poor Ovid" died in exile. In Shandy, he related, 
as he remembered it from Vergil, the scene in the Elysian 
Fields where Aeneas meets "the pensive shade of his forsaken 
Dido", and added that she still awakened in him "those 
affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when 
I was at school". Uncle Toby's love for the Iliad, as well as 
for chapbooks in which there were soldiers and adventure 
and much fighting, is undoubtedly only a reminiscence of 
Sterne's own passion for them. If we may have it so, the 
boy purchased with his own pocket money "Guy of War- 

* Fitzgerald, Life of Sterne, I, 9-10 (London, 1896). 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 25 

wick", "Valentine and Orson", "The Seven Champions of 
Christendom", and handed them round among his school 
companions. And of the "Iliad", he says: "Was I not as 
much concerned for the destruction of the Greeks and Trojans 
as any boy of the whole school ? Had I not three strokes of 
a ferula given me, two on my right hand, and one on my left, 
for calling Helena a b * * * * for it? Did any one of you 
shed more tears for Hector? And when king Priam came to 
the camp to beg his body, and returned weeping back to Troy 

without it, you know, brother, I could not eat my dinner. ' ' 

In all this Sterne doubtless carried back to his school days 
much of his maturer sentiment; and yet it may be fairly in- 
ferred that the characters in the books he read at school were 
real persons to him in whose adventures he took an active and 
sympathetic part beyond the habit of most boys. This love 
for ancient literature was quite sufficient for the master's 
prophecy, after the whipping, that Laurence possessed talents 
that would bring him to preferment. 

Between school and university intervened for Sterne a 
period of uncertainty. By 1731 at the latest he should have 
been ready for Cambridge. But just at this time news 
reached him of his father's death in the West Indies; and 
the boy, then in his eighteenth year, was left "without one 
shilling in the world". His mother in much distress came 
over from Ireland; and after scant courtesy from her hus- 
band's relatives, she returned to Clonmel with her pension 
of £20, barely sufficient for the support of herself and 
Catherine, whom she kept with her. Any aid to her son was 
out of the question. The next year his uncle Richard, ' ' being 
somewhat infirm in body", started for York and fell dead 
at Bradford. By his will signed and sealed* a few weeks 
before his death, Richard Sterne bequeathed his royalty and 
estate at Elvington and all his estates at Ovenden, Halifax, 
and Hipperholme to his eldest son Richard by Dorothy Lister ; 
and to a younger son Timothy by Esther Booth, were be- 
queathed Woodhouse and all his lands within the parish of 
Skircoat. Timothy, then only a boy, afterwards married and 

* Signed September 11, and proved October 25, 1732. — York Registry 

of Wills. 



26 LAURENCE STERNE 

settled at Woodhouse Hall, where, surrounded by horses and 
dogs, he developed into a squire of the kind one may read 
about in Addison and Fielding. Laurence never mentioned 
Timothy, probably because he was under no obligation to him. 
Richard, the eldest son and chief heir, barely twenty-five 
years old at his father's death, also soon married and took up 
his residence at Elvington. Between Richard and Laurence 
there must have been much in common, for the humourist, 
in spite of differences that sprang up later in life, always 
spoke with respect and affection of his cousin at Elvington. 
He became, said Sterne in reviewing his career, "a father to 
me"; to his protection * ' I chiefly owe what I now am"; and 
but for his aid, "I should have been driven out naked into 
the world, young as I was, and to have shifted for myself as 
well as I could". 

The substantial service for which Sterne expressed this 
profound gratitude was an allowance of £30 a year towards 
his expenses at the university. After drifting about for 
several months, he went up to Cambridge, says the memoir, 
in 1732, but the date is clearly a slip in memory by a full 
year. He was enrolled, according to the record of it, as a 
sizar at Jesus College on July 6, 1733. The choice of this 
college out of all others at Cambridge was most natural, for 
his uncle Jaques and his master at Halifax, whether Mr. 
Sharpe or Mr. Lister, were both educated there; and his 
great-grandfather, Archbishop Sterne, had been one of its 
masters and generous benefactors. As in everything else 
connected with Sterne some fact or incident will appear out 
of the usual order, so it is with the official records of him at 
Cambridge. Fashioned himself unlike other men, it is as if 
all who had to do with him, whether closely or at a distance, 
were infected by his own strange courses. In his day sizars 
were admitted to Jesus College and elsewhere only after 
" being examined and approved". Examinatus et approbatus 
is the stereotyped formula. But no examination was required 
of Sterne. He was admitted "in his absence", reads the 
entry, "with the assent of Master and Fellows". Moreover, 
the official who enrolled him put down his name as Henry 
instead of Laurence, and described him as a native of York, 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 27 

either by mistake or by the direction of the master. The 
next year— on July 30, 1734— Sterne, then in residence, was 
elected, after being duly sworn, to one of the scholarships 
founded by his great-grandfather "for natives of Yorkshire 
and Nottingham", though, as he was born in Ireland, he did 
not possess the necessary qualifications. Of these curious 
irregularities, the readiest explanation is that before Laurence 
was entered at Cambridge, his cousin Richard of Elvington 
had come to some agreement with the Master of Jesus, whereby 
all technicalities relative to birth-place and examination were 
to be waived in consideration of the young man's descent 
from Archbishop Sterne. The boy could not have been 
accorded greater favours had he been the son of a nobleman. 
For some reason— perhaps because of the fee— Sterne de- 
ferred matriculation in the university until March 29, 1735, 
nearly two years after he came into residence. 

The Master of Jesus was Charles Ashton, a quiet scholar 
known for his studies in classical and patristic literature. 
Among the learned fellows Sterne had as his first tutor 
Charles Cannon, a young man about thirty years old. Cannon 
died in the winter of 1734-5 and Sterne was then transferred 
to John Bradshaw, a fellow some six years older, who guided 
him through the rest of the course and recommended him for 
his degree. Associated with Sterne under his second tutor 
were a certain Thomas Mould, a Peter Tomiano, who failed 
to take a degree, and Frederick Keller, who became a dis- 
tinguished fellow of his college and the literary executor 
of Dr. Ashton. Whether any unusual friendship existed 
between Sterne and Keller is not known ; but it is interesting 
to observe in passing that the two men were prepared for 
their examinations by the same tutor. 

Sterne, with his family pride, could not have been fully at 
ease in his position in the university. Sizars, to be sure, 
then performed no menial services at Cambridge; the time 
was past when they were required, as Eachard complains, to 
fetch water, sweep chambers, and make beds for their 
superiors; and the line was no longer fast drawn between 
them and the pensioners and fellow-commoners above them. 
There were nevertheless social and other distinctions which 



28 LAURENCE STERNE 

would be felt and resented by a sensitive nature. With no 
tassels to their caps, unlucky sizars wore in clear view the 
badge of poverty. Sterne's allowance from his cousin, with 
the £10 a year that he received from his scholarship, sufficed 
no more than for the essentials of maintenance and clothing. 
Gentlemen then commonly spent thrice that sum. Without 
running into debt there could have been for Sterne no 
luxuries nor suppers and wine parties, such as were expected 
of youngsters from good families. Under the circumstances 
Sterne did exactly as one would expect of him : he borrowed 
money, from what source he does not say, and sought con- 
genial companions here and there among the men who, in the 
university scale, ranked socially above him. The names of 
but two of these friends have escaped oblivion. One was 
John Fountayne of Melton Manor, South Yorkshire, who was 
enrolled at St. Catharine's Hall. He was afterwards elected 
Dean of York and then he and Sterne were again placed in 
very intimate relations. Each, as will be duly related, came 
to the aid of the other in a noisy church quarrel which gave 
Sterne local reputation for a smart and witty pen. The 
other friend was John Hall, who some years later added 
Stevenson to his name and inherited Skelton Castle, over on 
the Yorkshire coast near Saltburn-by-the-Sea, He is the 
"dear cousin Antony" of numerous letters and the discreet 
Eugenius of Tristram Shandy, who warns Yorick against 
" unwary pleasantry", lest it bring him into "scrapes and 
difficulties" out of which no after-wit can extricate him. 
Five years younger than Sterne, Hall- Stevenson entered 
Jesus College as a fellow-commoner in 1735. Though the 
two men were together at Cambridge for only a year and a 
half, that time was long enough for a close friendship "which 
ever after * * * continued one and indivisible through life". 
Hall- Stevenson was, as described by one who recollected 
him at college, ' ' an ingenious young gentleman and in person 
very handsome". And so he appears in the fine portrait of 
him in velvet and lace that still hangs at Skelton. He was 
also an idler and decadent much given to the perusal of 
Eabelais and other facetious books in the French tongue. 
To Hall-Stevenson, Sterne was undoubtedly indebted for his 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 29 

first acquaintance with the great master of French humour. 
The two young men used to sit together under the large 
walnut tree that shaded the inner court of Jesus College, 
not we may be sure l ' to study ' ', as the York anecdotist relates 
it, but to read the common lounging-books, which in those 
days included, among others besides Rabelais, Joe Miller's 
Jests, Mrs. Behn's novels, Lord Rochester's poems, and the 
plays of Wycherley and Congreve. This old walnut tree 
they aptly called the Tree of Knowledge, inasmuch as they 
learned of good and evil while resting beneath its shadow. 

Sterne's associations with Hall-Stevenson would seem to 
be ample warrant for the tradition that he "was careless 
and inattentive to his book ' ', that is, to the prescribed studies ; 
that "he laughed a great deal, and sometimes took the 
diversion of puzzling his tutors". But such a summary in 
a phrase or two is inexact and incomplete. Sterne's main 
quarrel with the learned society of fellows and tutors of 
Jesus College, as set forth in Tristram Shandy, was that they 
were mere men of reading, who with their slight knowledge 
of the world thought that "wisdom can speak in no other 
language than Greek and Latin". "There is a husk and 
shell", he said of pedagogues, preceptors, tutors and gerund- 
grinders, "which grows up with learning, which their unskil- 
fulness knows not how to fling away". But among these 
unskilled scholars he did not include without reserve his own 
tutors, one or both of whom he took pains to describe as 
"worthy". The ancient poets and historians that Sterne 
read under the guidance of these men, he always mentioned 
and quoted with delight. Homer and Vergil, which were 
continued at college, he never tired of. Theocritus and 
Pindar charmed him for "the sweetness of the numbers" 
and "the musical placing of the words". Of the historians 
he liked best Thucydides, Herodotus, and Livy; while his 
praise of Tacitus was rather measured. The decisive style 
of Tacitus, he thought, overshot the mark, outwitting both 
author and reader. Eloquence, wherever found, always ap- 
pealed to Sterne strongly. But when he came to the dry 
bones of literary theory, rhetoric, logic, and metaphysics, he 
was simply amused that intellect should employ itself in that 



30 LAURENCE STERNE 

way. All these studies, which entered largely into the cur- 
riculum, he turned in aftertime to banter and gay ridicule. 
The only rhetorician that he ever praised freely is Longinus, 
whom he declared "the best critic the eastern world ever 
produced ". That admiration was based, it is quite clear, not 
so much upon the real worth of what Longinus wrote as upon 
his grand style. All the rest were his game. Near the open- 
ing of Tristram Shandy he begins his sport with those direc- 
tions to writers which Horace laid down in the Art of Poetry. 
"I shall" — says Sterne there, shifting the figurative meaning 
of the phrase to the literal — ' ' I shall start out, as Mr. Horace 
would have me, ao ovo; but beyond that I shall follow no 
rules of the ancients." Later on he has a fling at the Latin 
translation of Aristotle's Poetics which he read at college, 
explaining in lively banter the various parts of a drama— 
protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe or peripetia— which 
grow out of one another in the order the critic first planted 
them, and "without which a tale had better never be told 
at all". 

Perhaps Sterne overflows most in ridicule when he turns 
to logic. In his day the students at Cambridge were sup- 
posed to read the Latin manual on logic written by Francis 
Burgersdicius, sometime professor at Leyden, and the Dutch 
commentators thereon. Formal logic also then pervaded the 
instruction not only in mathematics but also in physics and 
moral philosophy. Sterne evidently had great contempt for 
the exercises wherein he was required to defend or oppose 
according to the stiff and rigid rules of logic a thesis drawn 
from one of these subjects. The academical dispute seemed 
to him only an adroit manipulation of words and phrases. 
This attitude of his towards logic is summed up in the char- 
acter and sayings of the elder Shandy, in whom nature 
blended her own rhetoric and logic without the aid of the 
schools. When the country squire— in an imaginary scene, 
which may have a faint counterpart in a visit of his own with 
his uncle or cousin Richard— went up to Cambridge to enter 
his son at Jesus College, the fellows and tutors whom he met 
there could not understand how a man that had never heard 
a single lecture on the Dutch logicians should be able to talk 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION 31 

and reason as cleverly as themselves. The squire seemed to be 
aware, as well as the respondents and opponents whom they 
trained for the public acts, that a disputant should aim, not 
to convince, but to silence the man against him. It was 
known to him, as well as to Burgersdicius and his disciples, 
that ' ' every thesis and hypothesis have an offspring of propo- 
sitions; and each proposition has its own consequences and 
conclusions ; every one of which leads the mind on again into 
fresh tracks of enquiries and doubtings ' '. Mr. Shandy was 
also afflicted, just as were they, with "the commonplace 
infirmity of the greatest mathematicians", who work "with 
might and main at the demonstration, and so wasting all 
their strength upon it, * * * have none left in them to draw 
the corollary, to do good with". 

It was the opinion of Mr. Shandy that the English school- 
boy began his studies too late and was kept at them too long. 
Listen to the squire as he enumerates to a company gathered 
at Shandy Hall the stages that Sterne himself passed through 
from the cradle to the Bachelor's degree: 

"Five years with a bib under his chin; 

"Four years in travelling from Christ-cross-row to 
Malachi ; 

* ' A year and a half in learning to write his own name ; 

"Seven long years and more Twrrw-ing it, at Greek and 
Latin ; 

"Four years at his probations and his negations— the fine 
statue still lying in the middle of the marble block,— and 
nothing done, but his tools sharpened to hew it out!— 'Tis a 
piteous delay!— Was not the great Julius Scaliger within an 
ace of never getting his tools sharpened at all? Forty- 
four years old was he before he could manage his Greek; — 
and Peter Damianus, lord bishop of Ostia, as all the world 
knows, could not so much as read, when he was of man 's estate. 
— And Baldus himself, as eminent as he turned out after, 
entered upon the law so late in life, that every body imagined 
he intended to be an advocate in the other world : no wonder, 
when Eudamidas, the son of Archidamas, heard Xenocrates 
at seventy-five disputing about wisdom, that he asked gravely, 



32 LAURENCE STERNE 

—If the old man he yet disputing and enquiring concerning 
wisdom, — what time will he have to make use of it?" 

Mr. Shandy would have none of this delay in the educa- 
tion of his son Tristram, and so set about to discover "a 
North-west passage to the intellectual world". He found it 
in a running dance with the auxiliary verbs. By conjugat- 
ing have, do, shall, will, etc., with a variety of nouns and 
pronouns, affirmatively, negatively, interrogatively, and hypo- 
thetically, it was shown conclusively that a young gentlemen 
might be taught in a few lessons "to discourse with plaus- 
ibility upon any subject, pro and con, and to say and write 
all that could be spoken or written concerning it, without 
blotting a word, to the admiration of all who beheld him". 
This is the key to all knowledge, the ars magna, says Sterne, 
that Kaymond Lully and numerous scholastics have long 
sought for in vain. Once in the secret of it, a man may talk 
on forever about things and entities whereof he knows noth- 
ing. The great art was especially commended by Sterne to 
college tutors whose business it might be to provide topics in 
logic for the young gentlemen who come under their charge. 
He could assure them to a certainty that there was nothing 
like the use of the auxiliaries for setting "the soul a-going 
by herself upon the materials as they are brought to her". 
"By the versability of this great engine, round which they 
are twisted", may be opened, he declared, "new tracks of 
enquiry", and every idea be made to "engender millions". 

The light of a new age in science and speculation was 
beginning to break upon Cambridge while Sterne was there. 
For some time Newton, Hobbes, Locke, and various modern 
historians and publicists had formed part of the usual course 
of reading.* To these writers Sterne took strong likes and 
dislikes. Pufendorf's immense work on the Law of Nature 
was not forgotten by the humourist when he came to describe 
in Tristram Shandy the incontestable rights of the Homun- 
culus which the eminent jurist had forgotten to enumerate. 

* For the reading prescribed and recommended at Cambridge in 
Sterne's time, see Christopher Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae (Cam- 
bridge, 1877). Compare with Sterne, John Eachard's burlesque of 
the university curriculum in The Grounds and Occasions of the Con- 
tempt of the Clergy (London, 1670, reprinted in Arber's English Gar- 
ner i VII). 



_ 



BIUTH AND EDUCATION 33 

Cliiver, the German historian and geographer, he regarded 
as a pedant, who spent his time in trying to ascertain where 
the Goths and other Germanic tribes were first seated and so 
had nothing to say about their manners and customs. Why, 
asks Sterne in Tristram Shandy, did not "the learned 
Cluverius" mention in his Germania Antiqua, the wise 
custom among the Goths "of debating every thing of im- 
portance to their state, twice ; that is, — once drunk, and once 
sober :— Drunk— that their councils might not want vigor;— 
and sober— that they might not want discretion ' '. That 
story, Sterne would say, is more interesting than the geogra- 
phy of the country between the Vistula and the Oder. On 
the other hand Sterne admired Newton at a distance. Of 
Hobbes he knew enough to allude to that quaint title-page of 
the Leviathan whereon is depicted graphically the horns of a 
dilemma, upon which hang syllogisms of various sorts while 
masters and students stand about in their gowns. Finally, 
Sterne could never cease praising the author of the Essay on 
the Human Understanding. After all his wanderings in 
logic and metaphysics, he discovered in the great Locke, the 
sagacious Locke, a writer who really knew what passes in a 
man's mind, and one whose search was ever after truth, not 
after adroit and dishonest means for defending propositions 
that every one knows must be false. The famous essay 
became Sterne's companion to the end of life and coloured 
much of his own thinking. 

Sterne received his degrees from Jesus College in due 
course, graduating B.A. in January 1736-7 and M.A. at 
commencement in July 1740. When he appeared for his first 
degree he could not have been included— needless to say per- 
haps—among "the hard reading men" of the type of 
Frederick Keller. But he had read, as we have seen, the 
books that he was expected to know; and they were tucked 
away in memory ready for his purposes when needed. An 
old anecdotist likely guessed the truth, if he had no authority 
for the statement, when he said that Sterne had a way of 
puzzling his tutors. But it was, we may be sure, only the 
good natured banter of a man "who loved a jest in his heart". 
We miss greatly some authentic account of the impression 



34 LAURENCE STERNE 

that Sterne made upon his tutors and associates. On this 
point there is nothing beyond what was current thirty years 
after. It was then said that " Sterne left Cambridge with 
the character of an odd man, that had no harm in him; 
and who had parts if he would use them". A portrait of a 
beautiful youth by Allan Ramsay, believed to be Sterne at the 
age of twenty-seven, when he came up for his Master 's degree, 
now hangs, as was said earlier, near Coleridge, in the hall 
of Jesus College. It is an oval face in the freshness 
of youth, such as Sterne himself admired, with full eyes 
and full lips, but hardly suggestive of the humour that 
was in him. 

Sterne was destined for the Church, not because of 
deep and peculiar piety but because the Church was an 
obvious career to one who bore his name. In that way 
awaited him a livelihood and the preferment which his master 
had prophesied for him while at school. His immediate 
prospects, however, were far from bright. He began the 
world, as he often said, with "many difficulties and draw- 
backs". All along his family had looked upon him as the son 
of his mother rather than of his father. The annual stipend of 
£30 from his cousin Richard, inadequate at best, was paid 
irregularly, and not at all during his last year at Cambridge. 
So Sterne was compelled to borrow money elsewhere to 
settle his university debts. The expense of his food and 
clothing for the nine years at the Halifax grammar school 
was also charged up, he was now to discover, against him to 
be paid as soon as he should be able. From the first he had 
been a delicate boy like most of his father's children who had 
been left by the way one after another. In stature above mid- 
dle height, he was slim and hollow-chested. A dread disease 
lurking in his blood became manifest near the close of his 
residence at Cambridge. One night he was startled out of 
sleep by a hemorrhage of the lungs, "bleeding", he says, 
"the bed full". Fortunately, Sterne possessed a buoyant 
nature which could win the race against debts and con- 
sumption.* 

* The following are the original entries relative to Sterne in the 
register of Jesus College: 
Under Jury 6, 1733: 



BIETH AND EDUCATION 35 

Henricus Sterne Eboracensis absens admissus est in Ordinem Siza- 
torum cum consensu Magistri & Sociorum sub Tutore suo M>o Cannon. 

Under July 30, 1734: 

Laurentius Sterne electus est et admissus, prius juratus, Exhibi- 
tionarius Episcopi Eboracensis in locum Dni Hall. 

Under January 14, 1736-7: 

Eodem etiam die Fredericus Keller, Petrus Tomiano, Laurence 
Sterne & Thomas Mould habuerunt veniam sibi concessam petendi 
gratiam ab Acaclemia ad respondendum Quaestioni, spondente Mro 
Bradshaw. 

Under August 4, 1737: 

Literae Testimoniales concessae sunt Dno Sterne. 

Henricus in the first entry was afterwards deleted for Laurentius; 
Arch was also written before Episcopi in the second entry. Arch, of 
course, should be Archi. Mro is an abbreviation for Magistro; and 
Dni an abbreviation for Domini. 

1 ' The Eamsay portrait, ' ' writes Mr. Arthur Gray, Vice-Master of 
Jesus College, "was presented to the college by one of the Fellows, Mr. 
Hugh Shield, A. C, a few years ago. It is traditionally and, I believe, 
correctly said to be a portrait of Sterne in his youth and is unquestion- 
ably by Allan SamBay." 



CHAPTER II 

MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT AT SUTTON-ON-THE- 

FOREST 

1737-1744 

After obtaining his Bachelor's degree, Sterne immediately- 
entered upon his career in the Church. On Sunday, March 6, 
he was duly admitted, among other candidates, to the order of 
deacons by Richard Reynolds, the Bishop of Lincoln, "being 
very well recommended ' ', according to the customary formula, 
"for his exemplary Life, good Morals and virtuous qualities, 
and well instructed in the Study and knowledge of Sound 
Learning". The scene of this general ordination was the 
chapel of Buckden Hall near Huntingdon, long since in 
ruins, but then the palatial residence of the diocese. On the 
same day, Sterne was licensed by the Bishop of Lincoln to 
the curacy of St. Ives, five miles to the east of Huntingdon. 

St. Ives is an ancient market-town, which then consisted 
mainly of a single row of houses straggling along the north- 
eastern bank of the slow-moving Ouse. In the rear was a 
cattle market, and beyond were farms extending out into the 
fens, one of which, * ' a stagnant flat tract of land ' ', was culti- 
vated for five years by Oliver Cromwell. It was, too, as a 
representative of St. Ives, that Bulwer-Lytton the novelist 
obtained his first seat in Parliament. And now to its asso- 
ciations may be added the name of Laurence Sterne, who there 
began the cure of souls. All Saints, where Sterne officiated, is 
a light and handsome church in the perpendicular style, over- 
looking the sleepy stream, with a lofty spire visible for miles 
out over the fens. Sterne came to the parish as curate to the 
vicar, one William Pigott, a graduate of Pembroke College, 
Cambridge. Perhaps the two men had been acquainted at 
the university, for the vicar did not receive his Master's 
degree until 1734. But of this we do not know. No memorials 

36 




Laurence Sterne 
From a painting by Ramsay at Jesus College, Cambridge 



MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 37 

of the young curate of St. Ives longer exist; no entry of his 
in the parish registry; no tradition of him and his ways. 
Nothing remains but the bare record of his appointment in 
the Act Book of the Bishop of Lincoln. At most Sterne 
trod the flagstones of the ancient church at St. Ives for a 
year and a half and then passed out to new scenes. 

In the meantime, an important change had taken place in 
the attitude of the Sterne family towards the young man. 
His cousin Richard apparently broke with him over college 
debts and soon died before reaching middle life. His uncle 
Jaques, who had hitherto refused absolutely to aid him, now 
became his patron and gave him a good start in the world, 
as he well could from his position in the Church of York. 
This Jaques Sterne, before our memoir has finally done with 
him, will turn out to be a splendid example, equal to any in 
Trollope's novels, of the worldly-wise ecclesiastic who strives 
for high place solely for his own comfort and aggrandisement. 
Without possessing the solid character of the old archbishop 
bearing the family name', he was proud, blustering, and 
bigoted, and withal totally devoid of humour. 

Graduating from Jesus College, Bachelor of Arts in 1714, 
and Master of Arts in 1718, Jaques Sterne was ordained to the 
ministry in December 1720 at Bishopthorpe, the palace of the 
Archbishop of York. On February 5, 1722, he was instituted 
Vicar of Rise, a small parish near the coast in the East Riding 
of Yorkshire, to which living was added on May 3, 1729, the 
neighbouring vicarage of Hornsea-cum-Riston. A month 
before this last appointment— on April 3, 1729— he was in- 
stalled Prebendary of Apesthorpe in York Minster, and 
was permitted the next year to exchange this prebend for 
Ulskelf. Accompanying his rise, in no way unusual up to 
this point, Jaques Sterne had received in 1725 the degree of 
Doctor of Laws from his college. He was henceforth to be 
known as Dr. Sterne, a title by which he liked to be called. 
Having once gained a foothold in the Church of York, Dr. 
Sterne added one dignity to another, never letting slip any 
that he already had except for something better. In April 
1734 the eager pluralist was preferred to the rich prebend 
for South Muskham in the Cathedral Church of Southwell, 



38 LAUKENCE STERNE 

Nottinghamshire, which brought his annual income well above 
four hundred pounds. At the time of the appointment, he 
was too busy at York to appear in person at Southwell, and 
so the installation was by proxy. He was then in the midst 
of a fierce parliamentary contest, in which he won the day 
for the Whig candidate, Mr. Cholmley Turner, whose canvass 
he personally managed. After this brilliant success against 
the most stubborn and bitter opposition, Dr. Sterne easily 
took his place among those efficient church politicians of 
the period who were fighting the Whig battles for Walpole. 
Eesigning the prebend of Ulskelf, he was appointed, on the 
seventeenth of November of the next year, Canon Residentiary 
and Precentor to York Minster, and Archdeacon of Cleve- 
land. There was nothing further for him to ask for at 
present except a bishopric, but that could not be granted 
him.* 

The motives that led Dr. Sterne to take up his nepljew 
after years of neglect, one need not go far to seek. Laurence 
was no longer a helpless child of doubtful parentage whose 
education would be a drain upon the purse. He had made 
his way through the university, thereby displaying the Sterne 
energy and talents and proving himself the son of Roger 
Sterne rather than of a poor woman who followed the army 
in Flanders. No doubt Jaques Sterne thought it his duty to 
help along a member of his family who might come to some- 
thing; but it is clear, in the light of subsequent events, that 
he mainly sought in his nephew a subservient tool for fur- 
thering his own ambitions. Clever politician as he was, he 
would first make him and then use him as an understrapper. 
What happened when the young man thoroughly understood 
this, would be, I dare say, interesting reading, if only we had 
the full details of the encounter. But all that, with the few 
details we have, is for a later story. Peace reigned for some 
years. Pursuant to the plans agreed upon by uncle and 
nephew, Laurence Sterne, having left St. Ives, was admitted 
to the priesthood, by Samuel Peploe, Bishop of Chester, at a 

* For Jaques Sterne, see especially Le Neve and Hardy, Fasti 
Ecclesiae Anglicanae (Oxford, 1854) ; and G. Paulson, History of 
Holderness (Hull, 1890). 



MAEEIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 39 

special ordination held in the Cathedral Church of Chester, 
on Sunday August 20, 1738. Four days later Lancelot Black- 
burne, the Archbishop of York, conferred upon him the vicar- 
age of Sutton-on-the-Forest, within the archdeaconry of 
Cleveland. The next day he was formally inducted into the 
living by Richard Musgrave, the curate of Marton, with 
Philip Harland, the squire of the parish, as one of the 
witnesses.* 

Sutton-on-the-Forest is a small village eight miles or more 
to the north of the city of York. As one comes upon the 
hamlet from York, the road suddenly turns to the right, 
running almost due east. On the north side stood, as it now 
stands, the little stone church with square tower, dedicated to 
All Saints, and beyond was the parsonage hidden away among 
shrubbery. From his gate, Sterne looked directly across 
upon the grange of Squire Harland, while on either side of 
the road was a row of cottages with small enclosures ; and in 
various directions lanes led away to scattered farmsteads. 
The vicarage, which included the entire township of Sutton 
and of Huby to the west, extended over an area of nearly 
eleven thousand acres. It had formerly been known as Sut- 
ton-in-Galtres, for it lay at the heart of the immense Forest 
of Galtres, which stretched north to the ancient Isurium and 
south to the very walls of York. For centuries a royal hunt- 
ing ground wherein the old kings "pursued the wild boar, 
the wolf, and other beasts of prey with which it was in- 
fested", the ancient forest is now chiefly remembered, outside 
of local history, as the scene where Shakespeare's John of 
Lancaster met the northern rebels under Richard Scroop, 
Archbishop of York, and after persuading him to disband 
his power, treacherously broke faith with him, ordering his 
arrest and immediate execution. "It was", says Thomas 
Gill's Vallis Eboracensis, "in many places thick and shady 
with lofty trees and underwood, and in others wet and flat, 
full of bogs and moorish quagmires". In 1670 Parliament 

* All of Sterne 's ordination papers with endorsements now repose 
in the British Museum. (Additional Charters, 16158-66). The in- 
formation contained in these papers has been supplemented by an 
examination of the Institutions of the Diocese of York and the Acts of 
the Dean and Chapter. 



40 LAURENCE STERNE 

passed an act for enclosing this wild waste ; whereupon began 
those changes and improvements which have since converted 
Galtres into a rich and fruitful plain of meadows and pas- 
tures. In Sterne's time this transformation was not com- 
plete. Much of the forest had been levelled, meadows had 
been drained, and bogs had been filled up, but there yet 
remained many fields and large tracts of common land that 
had not been brought under the plough. If no longer in the 
forest, the hamlet of Sutton still lay within one of its old 
clearings which ran off in all directions into barren moors 
and marshes with woods beyond. 

The only attraction which this parish in the wilderness 
could have had for Sterne was the £40 a year that it put into 
his purse. He probably never expected to go into permanent 
residence. For the next three years he stayed mostly at 
York, it would seem, driving out to Sutton sometimes for 
Sunday service and the business of his parish. On one of 
these occasions, the vicar took down the parish registry, and, 
before entering a marriage or baptism, sprawled in large 
letters across the page LAU RENCE STERNE, much as he had 
done on the ceiling of the Halifax grammar school. The first 
entry in his hand, it may be interesting to note, was the 
marriage of John Newstead of Huby and Mary Wilkinson of 
Stillington, on Easter Tuesday, Anno Domini 1739. But 
most of the records for this year, and all of them, I think, for 
1740 are signed by Richard Wilkinson, a young man in 
deacon's orders, whom Sterne placed over the parish. Mr. 
Wilkinson was at Sutton on a slightly irregular appointment, 
merely as Sterne's assistant, for his license to the cure bears 
the date of December 17, 1740. His parish duties provided 
for, Sterne likely kept close to York, by the source of eccle- 
siastical preferment. Vacancies were then filled so promptly 
that candidates unless near at hand stood no chance of win- 
ning. On January 12, 1740-1, the prebend of Givendale in 
York Cathedral was resigned by the incumbent for the 
chancellorship, and five days later Sterne was in possession of 
the stall. Thenceforth he became a member of the York 
Chapter and took his turns at preaching in the great minster. 
"He sat down quietly", says the contemporary account, "in 



MAKRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 41 

the lap of the church; and if it was not yet covered with a 
fringed cushion, 'twas not naked." 

At that time York was in truth as in name the metropolis 
of the north. Many country gentlemen made it their resi- 
dence the year through^ while others came in for the winter 
with their families. Provisions of all sorts were cheap and 
plentiful and hospitality abounded. Those who could not 
afford houses of their own went into lodgings or put up at 
one of the inns, of which the George in Coney Street was the 
meeting place of gentlemen to talk politics, confer with their 
lawyers, make and sign contracts, and nominate for mayor or 
member of Parliament. Nearby was Sunton's Coffee-House, 
one of several coffee-houses at York, and Sterne's favourite 
resort for gossip or a convivial evening with the club to which 
he belonged. During the season, which began in November, 
there were, says Defoe, who included York in one of his tours, 
" assemblies, music-meetings or some entertainment every 
night in the week"; while for a week in May and August a 
concourse of people, including the neighbouring and distant 
nobility and gentry, poured into the city from all sides for 
the amusements of "the great races", held on the field of 
Knavesmire, then one of the best courses in England. Chance 
visitors at the races in Sterne 's day were amazed at the pro- 
digious sums lost and won or left behind for lodgings, the 
theatre, and subscription balls. For those who required 
greater excitement than watching Antelope and Grenadier* 
run for his Majesty's purse of a hundred guineas, there was 
provided, twice a day during the week of the races and fre- 
quently at other times, a main of cocks with bye-battles, f 
between the gentlemen of York and the gentlemen of Halifax, 
Bradford, or some other respectable town of the north. 

York had also her own company of players, chosen with 
a "particular care * * * to their private life that they 
might be as sociable off the stage, as entertaining upon it". 
They had long performed in one of the cockpits, but by the 
time Sterne came to York, they were moving into their 
theatre in the Mint Yard, modelled after those of London. 

* YorTc Courant, August 11, 1752. 
\ lUd. August 13, 1751. 



42 LAURENCE STERNE 

There Sterne had an opportunity to see the whole range of 
the English drama from Shakespe f are and Jonson down to a 
comic opera founded upon local scene and character.* And 
not far from the theatre were the Assembly Rooms, the very 
centre of fashion. The building, which was designed after 
Palladio by that Earl of Burlington to whom Pope and Gay 
paid generous compliment, was then regarded as very beau- 
tiful, though it now appears heavy and dingy enough. It 
contained a spacious and showy hall ornamented in the 
antique Egyptian manner, and six other rooms, all of which, 
writes Defoe, were " finely illuminated with lustres of an 
extraordinary size and magnificence ".f To visitors of more 
sentiment than Defoe the overhanging lights on the evening 
of a concert or ball but revealed the brilliant scene below. 
"The ladies", said a correspondent of St. James's Chronicle^ 
"who vied in splendour with each other, I thought would never 
be tired of dancing, for some began on Monday and continued 
till Saturday night." And so it was at the theatre. Tate 
Wilkinson, the actor and mimic, who at a later date some- 
times played at York, was dazzled, he says, when his eyes 
turned towards the boxes; "and no wonder", it is added in 
explanation, "for as London and Bath cull the choicest 
beauties from the three kingdoms, so does ancient York city 
at times allure them from Hull, Leeds, Doncaster, Wakefield, 
Pontefract, and every part of that noble, spacious and rich 
country". 1 1 It is quite easy to see why a young bachelor should 
have preferred York to a country parish tucked away in a 
forest clearing. 

Among the young women with whom Sterne held senti- 
mental converse at the Assembly Rooms and elsewhere was 
Miss Elizabeth Lumley, who was accustomed to come to York 
for the season. As Sterne eventually took Miss Lumley to 
wife, we should tell what may be gleaned of her and her 
kindred. When he first made her acquaintance, she was 
occupying genteel lodgings, with her waiting-maid, in Little 
Alice Lane, a narrow street which under another name still 

* York Courant under various dates. 

t Tour of Great Britain, III, 125-26 (London, 1738). 

X August 26-28, 1766. 

|| Memoirs, III, 144-45 (York, 1790). 



MAEEIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 43 

winds away from the south of the Minster Yard to an arch- 
way marking one of the old gates to the Cathedral Close. 
Most of the buildings of the street were pulled down a half 
century ago; but the house where Miss Lumley was wont to 
take lodgings for the winter may perhaps be identified with 
St. William's College, originally an ecclesiastical foundation 
for chantry priests, and afterwards converted into dwellings. 
It is an ancient and curious structure rambling around a 
court-yard; while in front a half-timbered upper storey pro- 
jects over one of stone into the street. The main entrance 
was by a door and wicket ornamented with beautiful tracery. 
It is a pleasing fancy, if nothing more, that Miss Lumley 
passed through that traceried doorway on the morning when 
she stepped over to the cathedral to become Mrs. Sterne. 
She could not boast, if casual references to her are to be 
believed, of the beauty that Tate "Wilkinson and other visitors 
saw in the Yorkshire ladies. She was indeed "but a homely 
woman", yet possessing grace, vivacity, and a love for music 
and the diversions of society. She had been well bred, and 
"possessed", says the antiquary,* "a first rate understand- 
ing", which enabled her to help Laurie with his sermons. 
"She had many admirers", it is said further, "as she was 
reported to have a fortune". When Sterne began to pay 
court to her she was twenty-five or twenty-six years old— 
about a year younger than himself. It was altogether a 
fitting match, if a man so volatile as Sterne were ever to 
marry. 

Miss Lumley belonged like himself to a good county family. 
Her father, the Eev. Robert Lumley, was the son of Rob- 
ert Lumley, Gentleman, of Northallerton, a market-town in 
the North Riding, by Eleanor, daughter to John Hopton, 
Esq., of Armley, a suburb of Leeds. His grandmother, on 
the mother's side, was a sister of Thomas Rymer, the critic 
and historian. At the age of sixteen Robert Lumley, his 
father then deceased, entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as 
a pensioner, where he graduated, Bachelor of Arts in 1710-1, 
and Master of Arts four years later. Ordained deacon by 

*John Croft, whose anecdotes of Sterne, to be frequently quoted, 
have been published by W. A. S. Hewins, Whitefoord Papers, 223-35 
(Oxford, 1898). 



44 LAUEENCE STESNE 

the Archbishop of York on December 21, 1712, he seems to 
have obtained a cnracy, though I have discovered no record 
of it, near Armley; most likely at Adel, a few miles to the 
northwest of the estate of his maternal grandfather. The 
little church at Adel, with its sculptured porch and chancel 
arch, is one of the loveliest survivals of Norman architecture 
in all England. Within the wide parish lay Cookridge Hall, 
the seat of Thomas Kirk, father and son, each of whom was 
known as "an ingenious gentleman, and virtuoso in all sorts 
of learning". They were both Fellows of the Royal Society. 
Cookridge was then famous in the district and beyond it for 
a "fine library and museum of antiquities" and for a park 
and wood laid out in "geometrical lines and centres". 
Thomas Kirk the younger died at the age of twenty-five, 
within a year and some months after his marriage to Lydia, 
daughter of Anthony Light, Esq., of London. Two years 
later — on September 24, 1711 — the young widow took as her 
second husband Robert Lumley. Of the marriage were born 
two daughters, Elizabeth and Lydia, of whom the former 
was christened in the beautiful Norman church at Adel, 
October 13, 1714. This is the Elizabeth Lumley who lived 
to become the wife of Laurence Sterne. Her sister was a 
year or two younger. As if loth to give up the pleasant 
retirement, the family stayed on at Cookridge for nearly ten 
years. 

But on January 12, 1720-1, Robert Lumley was admitted 
to the priesthood, at an unusually advanced period in life, 
by the Archbishop of York, preparatory to his appointment 
on October 16 to the vicarage of Bedale, near Northallerton 
and the home of his childhoo.d. He was instituted to the 
rectory on the sixth of the following November. In this old 
market-town, consisting of one long and wide street with the 
church of St. Gregory at the upper end of it, he remained 
until near his death in January or February, 1731-2. 
Bedale was one of the richest livings in Yorkshire— worth 
nearly £2000 a year — and so the Lumleys "lived in style", 
giving Lydia and Elizabeth ' ' a superior education ' ', as might 
be expected of a mother who had enjoyed the comforts and 
luxuries of Cookridge Hall. It is impossible to follow the 






MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 45 

migration of the family immediately after the death of the 
father. But Mrs. Lumley did not long survive her husband. 
On May 17, 1736, letters of administration of the father's 
estate were granted by the Prerogative Court of York to 
Elizabeth and Lydia Lumley, who are described in the pre- 
liminary application as spinsters living at Kendal, in West- 
moreland. No inventory of the estate was returned. Soon 
after the loss of her mother, Lydia married the Keverend 
John Botham, a Trinity man and son of the vicar of the 
same name at Clifton-Campville in Staffordshire, where it 
may be the Lumleys also owned an estate. Mr. Botham was 
subsequently appointed to the rectory of Albury in Surrey. 
Lydia died on March 22, 1753, at the age of thirty-nine, and 
was buried in the ancient parish church within Albury Park. 
After the marriage of her sister, Elizabeth divided her time 
between Clifton-Campville and the pleasures of York, settling 
at length, as said above, for a part of the year under the 
shadow of the great minster.* 

It took Sterne two years to win Miss Lumley. During 
the first months of the courtship, they shared together the 
amusements of York and sat down to many a "sentimental 
repast" in the seclusion of Little Alice Lane amid roses and 
jessamines. From some odd fancy they called their retreat 
D'Estella, perhaps in memory of Stella, the name by which 
Swift addressed Esther Johnson. The lovers had a con- 
fidante—just as one reads of in the novels of Samuel Rich- 
ardson—disguised under the name of "the good Miss S " 

who tried to help along the attachment to a successful issue. 
Miss Lumley, though she owned she liked Sterne from the 
first, held him off with the excuse that she was not rich 

* Information concerning the Lumleys and the families into which 
they married lies scattered in The Begisters of the Parish Church of 
Adel (volume V of Thoresby Society Publications, 1895) ; T. D. 
Whitaker, Loidis and Elmete (1816) ; Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis, 
edited by Whitaker (1816) ; Begister of Marriages in York Minster 
(Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, II, 321) ; and 
Manning and Bray, History * * * of Surrey, II, (1809). An etching 
of the church at Adel is given by H. T. Simpson, Archaeologia Adelensis 
(London, 1879). Likewise of Bedale, by H. B. M'Call, The Early 
History of Bedale (London, 1907). The present writer has been fur- 
nished with the entries with reference to Eobert Lumley in the Admis- 
sion Book of Trinity College and the diocesan registries of York and 
Chester. 



46 LAURENCE STEENE 

enough or that he was too poor to think of marriage just 
then. At this stage in the courtship, Miss Lumley went to 
her sister's in Staffordshire for a long visit extending into 
the winter, I should say, of 1740-41. Letters of course now 
passed to and fro. "I wrote to her often", says Sterne. 
Four of his letters Miss Lumley kept by her through life, 
doubtless as the ones that pleased her especially well. No 
one ever wrote love-letters at all like them, except in imita- 
tion of them. They are studies in emotion, possessing the 
harmony and cadence of phrase and sentence that were to 
distinguish, a quarter-century later, the Sentimental Journey 
from all other English books. 

In the first letter, Sterne, tired of the haunts of men, 
imagines for himself and Miss Lumley an earthly paradise 
where the polyanthus blooms in midwinter: 

"Yes! I will steal from the world, and not a babbling 
tongue shall tell where I am— Echo shall not so much as 
whisper my hiding-place— suffer thy imagination to paint 
it as a little sun-gilt cottage, on the side of a romantic hill— 
dost thou think I will leave love and friendship behind me? 
No! they shall be my companions in solitude, for they will 
sit down and rise up with me in the amiable form of my 
L — i — . We will be as merry and as innocent as our first 
parents in Paradise, before the arch fiend entered that unde- 
scribable scene. 

"The kindest affections will have room to shoot and 
expand in our retirement, and produce such fruit as madness, 
and envy, and ambition have always killed in the bud.— Let 
the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, the 
desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. — My L. has seen a 
polyanthus blow in December— some friendly wall has shel- 
tered it from the biting wind. — No planetary influence shall 
reach us, but that which presides and cherishes the sweetest 
flowers. God preserve us! How delightful this prospect in 
idea ! We will build, and we will plant, in our own way — 
simplicity shall not be tortured by art— we will learn of 
nature how to live — she shall be our alchymist, to mingle all 
the good of life into one salubrious draught. — The gloomy 
family of care and distrust shall be banished from our 



MAEEIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 47 

dwelling, guarded by thy hand and tutelar deity— we will 
sing our choral songs of gratitude, and rejoice to the end of 
our pilgrimage. 

" Adieu, my L. Return to one who languishes for thy 
society. ' ' 

The second letter strikes a more personal note in the 
account of Sterne's dreadful state after Miss Lumley's depar- 
ture to her sister. Sterne fell into a fever, and the con- 
fidante, hearing of it, tried to console with him, with the 
result that they both broke down under the pressure of their 
emotions. Sterne took Miss Lumley's lodgings in Little 
Alice Lane during her absence, but he could neither eat nor 
sleep until Fanny, the house-maid, had braced his nerves 
with hartshorn: 

"You bid me tell you, by dear L., how I bore your depar- 
ture for S , and whether the valley where D'Estella 

stands, retains still its looks— or, if I think the roses or jessa- 
mines smell as sweet, as when you left it— Alas ! everything 
has now lost its relish and look ! The hour you left D 'Estella, 
I took to my bed.— I was worn out by fevers of all kinds, but 
most by that fever of the heart with which thou knowest well 
I have been wasting these two years— and shall continue 

wasting till you quit S . The good Miss S , from the 

forebodings of the best of hearts, thinking I was ill, insisted 
upon my going to her.— What can be the cause, my dear L., 
that I never have been able to see the face of this mutual 
friend, but I feel myself rent to pieces? She made me stay 
an hour with her, and in that short space I burst into tears a 
dozen different times— and in such affectionate gusts of 
passion, that she was constrained to leave the room, and 
sympathize in her dressing-room — I have been weeping for 
you both, said she, in a tone of the sweetest pity— for poor 
L.'s heart, I have long known it— her anguish is as sharp 
as yours— her heart as tender— her constancy as great— her 
virtue as heroic— Heaven brought you not together to be 
tormented. I could only answer her with a kind look, and a 
heavy sigh— and returned home to your lodgings (which I 
have hired till your return), to resign myself to misery— 
Fanny had prepared me a supper— she is all attention to me 



48 LAUftENCE STEftNE 

—but I sat over it with tears; a bitter sauce, my L., but I 
could eat it with no other — for the moment she began to 
spread my little table, my heart fainted within me. — One 
solitary plate, one knife, one fork, one glass!— I gave a 
thousand pensive, penetrating lo'oks at the chair thou hadst 
so often graced, in those quiet and sentimental repasts— then 
laid down my knife and fork, and took out my handkerchief, 
and clapped it across my face, and wept like a child.— I do so 
this very moment, my L. ; for, as I take up my pen, my poor 
pulse quickens, my pale face glows, and tears are trickling 

down upon the paper, as I trace the word L -. thou! 

blessed in thyself, and in thy virtues— blessed to all that 
know thee— to me most so, because more do I know of thee 
than all thy sex.— This is the philtre, my L., by which thou 
hast charmed me, and by which thou wilt hold me thine, whilst 
virtue and faith hold this world together.— This, my friend, 
is the plain and simple magic, by which I told Miss — — I 
have won a place in that heart of thine, on which I depend so 
satisfied, that time, or distance, or change of everything which 
might alarm the hearts of little men, create no uneasy sus- 
pense in mine — Wast thou to stay in S these seven years, 

thy friend, though he would grieve, scorns to doubt, or to be 
doubted— 'tis the only exception where security is not the 
parent of danger.— I told you poor Fanny was all attention 
to me since your departure — contrives every day bringing in 
the name of L. She told me last night (upon giving me some 
hartshorn ) , she had observed my illness began the very day of 

your departure for S ; that I had never held up my head, 

had seldom, or scarce ever, smiled, had fled from all society— 
that she verily believed I was broken-hearted, for she had 
never entered the room, or passed by the door, but she heard 
me sigh heavily — that I neither eat, or slept, or took pleasure 
in anything as before — judge then, my L., can the valley 
look so well— or the roses and jessamines smell so sweet as 
heretofore? Ah me!— But adieu!— the vesper bell calls me 
from thee to my God ! ' ' 

During the correspondence, Miss Lumley entered com- 
plaint against her lover and their common friends at York 



MAKRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 49 

that they were neglecting her. Letters, no doubt, as was 
Sterne 's way, were not so frequent as they had been. In two 
letters Sterne pleaded for mercy at "the amiable tribunal' ' 
of pity, promising never to offend after. For her benefit he 
moralised prettily on the art of the coquette, the family 
affections, and the death of his dear friends. As an index 
to his reading at the time, we may observe, in addition to 
Eve's bower in Milton's Paradise Lost, an apparent allusion 
to The Beggar's Opera and a quotation from the Essay on 
Man, though not written out, as if Miss Lumley were 
thoroughly familiar with the moral essay of the great poet. 
Winter was breaking, he finally told Miss Lumley, and she 
must come to York for the Spring. "Return— return— " 
was the burden, ' ' the birds of Yorkshire will tune their pipes, 
and sing as melodiously as those of Staffordshire". 

The summons was heeded. What occurred afterwards 
Sterne himself related for his daughter Lydia. At her 
return, says the memoir, Miss Lumley "fell into a consump- 
tion—and one evening that I was sitting by her with an 
almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said, 'My dear 
Laurey, I can never be yours for I verily believe I have not 
long to live— but I have left you every shilling of my for- 
tune;'— upon that she shewed me her will— this generosity 
overpowered me. It pleased God that she recovered, and I 
married her in the year 1741". By that time Sterne had 
become, I dare say, fatigued by his courtship. He took Miss 
Lumley on the impulse of the moment, just as his father before 
him had taken the widow of a brother officer. The pathetic 
scene we have described, occurred, it is said, in the Assembly 
Rooms; "whence they went off directly * * * and were 
married". However that may be, the story closes with the 
terse record in the registry of York Minster that the Rev. 
Laurence Sterne and Miss Elizabeth Lumley of Little Alice 
Lane were married, under special license, on Easter Monday, 
March 30, 1741, by Richard Osbaldeston, Dean of the 
York Chapter. The romance which was thus quickly shuffled 
to a conclusion, like the last act of a play, had developed 
in Sterne a peculiar emotional state, to describe which he was 

4 



50 LAURENCE STERNE 

the first of all writers to employ the epithet sentimental.* 
Had he then possessed the motive and matter for it, he might 
have written his Sentimental Journey. 



II 

Straightway after marriage, Sterne prepared to occupy 
his living at Sutton-on-the-Forest ; by midsummer he was 
settled there with his bride. The "little sun-gilt cottage on 
a romantic hill" that he had dreamed of in his correspond- 
ence with Miss Lumley proved to be "a large ruinous house", 
which could be rendered habitable only after "great re- 
pairs". Under his predecessor, the late Reverend John 
Walker, it had been totally neglected and was ready to fall. 
Sterne 's income at this time was hardly eighty pounds a year, 
Sutton being estimated at forty pounds and Givendale at 
some odd pounds short. Out of that sum Sterne was paying 
a curate. His wife, true to her promise, placed in her 
husband's hands— his honour laid as surety— her fortune, 
which was referred to many years later as forty pounds a 
year. This additional income enabled Sterne to renovate his 
parsonage; but like others who have made over old houses, 
he found the expense of it greater than had been anticipated. 
When he had done with the repairs, he recorded his emotions, 
along with the items of cost, in the following entry on the 
inside of one of the covers to his parish registry : 

£ s d 
"Laid out in Sashing the House, 12 A. Bom. 1741 
"In Stukoing And Bricking the Ball 4 16 0~] 

"In Building the Chair House 5 I L. Sterne 

"In Building the Parlr Chimney 3 vX Vicar 

"Little House 2 3 0\ 

"Spent in Shapeing the Booms, Plastering, Underdrawing fy Jobbery 

* ' God knows what < « ; ' 

It is curious that Sterne should first appear as a jester in 
this old dog-eared parish book. The dash he drew across 

* See, however, Boissy 's Le Frangais a Londres, a one act prose 
comedy first performed in 1727. The heroine says of love that it is 
in England un commerce de sentimens (Scene II). From this it is not 
a far step to Sterne's " sentimental commerce" or "sentimental 
repasts. ' ' 



MARKIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 51 

the page on bringing the account to a close, leaving it to 
Omniscience to write in the long row of figures, is whimsical 
enough for Tristram Shandy. Mrs. Sterne's breeding also 
comes out here unexpectedly. She was to have her dwelling 
Dewly sashed after the latest style. The chair-house, too, 
was for her benefit, that she might keep a carriage for driving 
about the district or taking a wheel into York to visit her 
friends. After repairing and rebuilding, came "the entire 
furnishing" of the rectory at an expense of which Sterne 
complained, though he gave no details. Their house in order, 
the vicar and his wife began to lay out "pleasing walks", 
as they called them, "amid trees, shrubs, and flowers". 
They were also as curious as Mr. Walter Shandy "in wall- 
fruit and green gages especially". Their curate, the Rev- 
erend Mr. Wilkinson, as it is faithfully recorded in the 
parish registry, began the improvements by building an 
arbour, and planting twenty or more elm trees in the large 
house garden and the churchyard, a few of which may be 
still standing. Then followed further planting along with 
the necessary enclosures, the details of which Sterne set down 
in his own hand. The entries run : 

"Mem? That the Cherry Trees & Espalier Apple Hedge 
we planted in j e . Garden October yf 9, 1742. The Nec- 
tarines and Peaches planted the same Day. The Pails 
set up two months before 

"I Laid out in the Garden in y e . year 1742, the sum of 
£8 15s. 6d. 

L. Sterne 
"Laid out in Inclosing the Orchard, & in Apple Trees, 

£ sh d 
&c in y e . Year 1743, 5 

Orchard y e 28 th day of October, 1743, by L. Sterne." 

"The Apple Trees, Pear & Plumb Trees, planted in y? 

During this period of planting and repairing, Sutton was 

visited by two hail-storms, the severity of which Sterne no 



52 LAURENCE STEBNE 

doubt playfully exaggerated, for we read in the parish book 
near the end: 

"In the Year 1741 

"Hail fell in the midst of Summer as big as a 
Pidgeon's Egg, w c . h unusual Occurrence I thought fit to 
attest under my hand 

L. Sterne 

"In May 1745 

"A dismal Storm of Hail fell upon this Town & upon 
some other adjacent ones, w c . h did considerable Damage 
both to the Windows & Corn. Many of the Stones meas- 
ured six Inches in Circumference. 

' ' It broke almost all the South & West Windows, both of 
this House and my Vicarage at Stillington. 

L. Sterne" 

When Sterne finished his improvements he had made out 
of Sutton a comfortable retirement, which was to be his 
home for nearly twenty years. The old rectory, subsequently 
burned to the ground, lay back from the road to the north, 
in an orchard of shrubs, fruit, and flowers of his own plant- 
ing. If his wife's fortune had been reduced by the 
expense of coming into the living, two important preferments 
more than made up for the loss. On December 26, 1741, the 
prebend of North Newbald fell vacant by the death of the 
Reverend Robert Hitch, who had "overheated himself"* in 
the recent election for members of Parliament. At a meeting 
of the York Chapter held on the fifth of the following Jan- 
uary, Sterne resigned Givendale for the wealthier stall of 
North Newbald. The formal installation took place on 
January 8. Besides being worth fully £40 a year, the new 
prebend carried with it a house in Stonegate near the minster, 
which could be rented or used as a town residence. 

Adjoining Sutton, two miles to the north, was the vicar- 
age of Stillington, which fell to Sterne on the death of the 

* Thomas Gent, the York printer, Life, 194-95 (London, 1832), 
Sterne is briefly described. 



MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 53 

incumbent, Kichard Musgrave, formerly curate of Marton. 
The little church, set high over the hamlet, looks much as it 
did in Sterne's time. The old box pews remain and the old 
gallery in the rear is still used. Of the new appointment 
Sterne said, ' ' By my wife 's means I got the living of Stilling- 
ton— a friend of her's in the south had promised her, that if 
she married a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became 
vacant, he would make her a compliment of it. ' ' The friend 
in the south who exerted his influence for Sterne has been 
doubtfully identified with Thomas, Lord Fairfax, who soon 
afterwards settled in Virginia, where he became associated 
with the young George Washington. Be this as it may, the 
details of the appointment which enrolled Sterne among the 
small pluralists of the period, may be discovered in con- 
temporary records. It is well to give them here. On Feb- 
ruary 27, 1743-4, the Dean and Chapter of York issued 
certificates to the Chancellor of England, the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, and the Archbishop of York, praying that Sterne, 
known for his "good life and conversation" be permitted to 
hold Stillington along with Sutton. On March 3, the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury signed the dispensation, "being moved 
by your supplications" and the general considerations that 
"the greater progress Men make in Sacred Learning, the 
greater in Encouragement they merit, and the more their 
Necessities are in daily Life, the more necessary supports of 
Life they require". It was stipulated that Sterne should 
preach thirteen sermons at Stillington every year, exercise 
hospitality for two months each year, and in his absence 
provide a minister for the parish in case the revenues were 
adequate for the purpose. The dispensation was confirmed 
by letters-patent of his Majesty on March 6. These pre- 
liminaries over, the Reverend Richard Levett, Prebendary of 
Stillington, who was the patron of the living, presented 
Sterne's name to Richard Osbaldeston, the Dean of York, who 
made the appointment on the thirteenth. The next day 
Sterne was formally inducted into the vicarage by Richard 
Hanxwell, Vicar of Sheriff-Hutton.* 

* The Richard Levett who nominated him to the living also held a 
prebend at Southwell. He seems to have been the son of the vicar of 
the same name at Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, who graduated from 



54 LAURENCE STERNE 

Stillington added to Sterne's resources another annual 
forty pounds. He could now live comfortably and at ease. 
So near was Stillington to Sutton that it was not necessary 
for him to engage a curate for the new parish. At the same 
time Mr. Wilkinson found another field of labour; and for 
several years Sterne either performed alone the duties of two 
parishes or employed curates who had not reached the dignity 
of a bishop's license. He had, however, a trustworthy and 
obedient parish-clerk, whom he facetiously called "my sinful 
Amen". It was Sterne's custom to preach at Sutton on 
Sunday morning and to stroll over to Stillington for an after- 
noon service, using very likely the same sermon, for Sterne 
was not the man to expend unnecessary energy upon his 
parishioners. Once, said the brother of the squire of Stilling- 
ton, as Sterne "was going over the Fields 1 on a Sunday to 
preach at Stillington, it happened that his Pointer Dog 
sprung a Covey of Partridges, when he went directly home 
for his Gun and left his Flock that was waiting for him in 
the Church in the lurch ". 

In the dispensation granting him the right to hold Stil- 
lington as well as Sutton, Sterne was styled "Chaplain to 
the Right Honourable, Charles, Earl of Aboyn", that is, to 
Charles Gordon, fourth Earl of Aboyne, then a young man 
only sixteen or seventeen years old. When or under what 
circumstances Sterne became connected with this ancient 
Scottish family there is, of course, no indication in the docu- 
ment itself. But Sterne had ample opportunity of meeting 
the Gordons, for they frequently, if not regularly, attended 
the York races in August. Mr. Sidney Lee thinks that he 
may have made the grand tour soon after his marriage in 
company with the young earl or with some near relation of 
his. The conjecture receives considerable support from 
Tristram Shandy. Before beginning that book, Sterne had 
probably travelled abroad. "Why are there so few palaces 
and gentlemen's seats," the elder Shandy is made to ask, 
"throughout so many delicious provinces in France? Whence 

Christ's College, Oxford, in 1697, and subsequently served as curate 
to his father. Thus what little evidence we have points to Richard 
Levett, not to Lord Fairfax, as the friend to whom Sterne owed his 
preferment. 



MAEKIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 55 

is it that the few remaining Chateaus amongst them are so 
dismantled,— so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and desolate 
a condition?" In another passage of the first book, Sterne 
speaks of the muleteer who "drives on his mule,— straight 
forward;— for instance, from Borne all the way to Loretto, 
without ever once turning his head aside either to the right 
hand or to the left". With the Low Countries Sterne showed 
perhaps greater familiarity. Uncle Toby, in giving orders 
for his fortifications on the bowling green, insisted on having 
the town "built exactly in the style of those of which it was 
most likely to be the representative :— with grated windows, 
and the gable ends of the houses, facing the streets, &c. &c— 
as those in Ghent and Bruges, and the rest of the towns in 
Brabant and Flanders". It was in Flanders, too, where 
Yorick got an asthma in skating against the wind. And 
finally Yorick says, in excuse for not looking into Saxo 
Grammaticus for his descent from Hamlet's jester, "I had 
just time, in my travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy's 
eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as gov- 
ernor, riding along with him at a prodigious rate, thro' most 
parts of Europe, and of which original journey performed 
by us two, a most delectable narrative will be given in the 
progress of this work; I had just time, I say, and that was 
all, to prove the truth of an observation, made by a long 
sojourner in that country; — namely, 'That nature was 
neither very lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts 
of genius and capacity to its inhabitants. ' ' ' From all this it 
may be surmised at least that after the races of 1741, Sterne 
left his bride at home and took a flying trip to the Continent 
with a stripling from the house of Gordon, renamed "Mr. 
Noddy's eldest son" in contempt for his intellect. 

At most Sterne's absence abroad was not long enough to 
interfere materially with his plans for improving Sutton and 
making it his home. He was back by January. It is inter- 
esting to see cropping up, in his mode of life at this time, 
the ideals of the old squirearchy to which he belonged. 
Under different circumstances Sterne would have developed 
into another Simon or Richard of Halifax. The year of his 
marriage he was commissioned a justice of the peace, and 



56 



LAUKENCE STEBNE 



from enclosing and planting the garths about the rectory he 
branched out into miscellaneous farming for the increase of 
his winnings. Like most country parsons of his day, he 
looked after the collection and disposal of his tithes in kind, 
consisting of the corn and small tithes of Sutton and the hay 
of Huby, which belonged to his vicarage. He also cultivated 
the glebe of his benefice; and, not satisfied with this, he 
broke into his wife's fortune by purchasing a neighbouring 
farm, described in legal phrase as "a messuage and certain 
lands". In this undertaking Mrs. Sterne joined with the 
zest of her husband. "They kept", said the local antiquary 
who knew Sterne personally, "a Dairy farm at Sutton, had 
seven milch cows, but they allways sold their Butter cheaper 
than their Neighbours, as they had not the least idea of 
ceconomy, [so] that they were allways behind and in arrears 
with Fortune." They also raised geese (which were regarded 
as Mrs. Sterne's perquisites) for the market and for presents 
to their friends, probably giving away as many as they sold. 
Of Mrs. Sterne's "gooses", as he sometimes called them, 
that were permitted to run wild, Sterne occasionally wrote 
in pleasant humour. "My wife", runs a letter to a friend 
at York, ' ' sends you and Mrs. Ash a couple of stubble geese — 
one for each; she would have sent you a couple, but thinks 
'tis better to keep your other Goose in our Bean Stubble till 
another week. All we can say in their behalf is, that they 
are (if not very fat) at least in good health and in perfect 
freedome, for they have never been confined a moment." 
Just as Sterne here took his stubble geese as a theme for 
freedom, so in Tristram Shandy his experience in planting 
cabbages was turned to a defence of his digressive style. 
"I defy", it is said there, "the best cabbage planter that 
ever existed, whether he plants backwards or forwards, it 
makes little difference in the account (except that he will 
have more to answer for in the one case than in the other) — 
I defy him to go on coolly, critically, and canonically, plant- 
ing his cabbages one by one, in straight lines, and stoical 
distances * * * without ever and anon straddling out, or 
sidling into some bastardly digression." As time went on, 
Sterne became occupied far more than he wished with his 



MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 57 

farming, as may be seen in the following extract from a letter 
to his York friend : 

"I would have wrote on Saturday, but in Truth, tho' I 
had both Time and Inclination, my Servants had neither the 
one nor the other, to go a yard out of their Road to deliver 
it— They having set out with a Wagon Load of Barly at 
12 o'clock, and had scarse day to see it measured to the 
Maltsman. I have four Thrashers every Day at work, and 
they mortify me with declarations, That there is so much 
Barly they cannot get thro' that speces before Xmas Day, 
and God knows I have (I hope) near eighty Quarters of Oats 
besides. How shall I manage matters to get to you, as we 
wish for three months ! ' ' 

Sterne's dealings in land which made possible farming 
on so large a scale, may be uncovered in the office of the 
registry of deeds at Northallerton, where are kept the records 
for the North Eiding. Conveyances to and from Sterne as 
there recorded, were mostly, after the custom of the time, 
in the form of lease and release. Unfortunately the original 
deeds were not engrossed in full, but only brief abstracts of 
them called memorials, which give merely such details as were 
necessary to identify the property in the conveyance. In no 
case is there, for example, an estimate of acreage; and 
whether a conveyance in a given case means an actual sale or a 
mortgage can only be conjectured, for there is never a state- 
ment to either effect. Besides all this, the record is evidently 
incomplete, as should be expected, for the conveyance by 
lease and release was originally a device to escape the expense 
and publicity of registration. Still, a shrewd guess, helped 
out by Tristram Shandy and a letter or two, leaves no doubt 
concerning Sterne's actual purchases. The dairy-farm to 
which reference has been made, had formerly been in the 
tenure and occupation of one Richard Tindall, and consisted 
of a dwelling, other buildings, and various lands and closes. 
It was conveyed to Sterne by William Dawson and his wife 
Mary, of Farlington, a neighbouring village and parish, by 
lease and release, dated respectively the first and second days 
of November, 1744, the year after the planting of the rectory 
garden with apples, pears, and plums. There is in the 



58 LAUEENCE STEENE 

memorial no indication of its situation beyond the vague 
formula that it lay in "the Town Townfields, precincts, and 
Territorys of Sutton in the Forrest". But the farm was 
situated, as is evident from what will be said much later in 
the memoir, to the north of the road leading through the 
hamlet, and it may have actually adjoined the glebe of the 
parish. 

The week following his purchase of the Tindall estate, 
Sterne bought three pieces of land from Richard Har- 
land, Esq., the chief proprietor in the neighbourhood. They 
are described in the indenture bearing date November 10, 
1744, as "one Stockiland lying in Murton Common field, 
* * * one land called a Hespole and Clockil Ings at the end 
of it, and another land called a Sankle Butt", all within the 
township of Sutton. The character of these lands and the 
uses to which they were to be put are sufficiently indicated 
by the local names attached to them. Murton was one of the 
six common fields of Sutton, which covered altogether thirteen 
hundred acres. The "stockiland" within it Sterne evidently 
desired as additional pasturage for those seven kine we wot 
of. What the word Hespole comes from I am not quite 
certain; but the alternative Clockil Ings is of course a cor- 
ruption of Clockholm Ings, meaning a low-lying, marshy 
meadow, covered with flowered rushes, known locally as clocks 
or clockseaves. Sankle Butt, short for Sancome or Sank- 
holm Butt, was likewise "a flat, spongy piece of ground", 
abutting upon some Boundary. It is a safe inference that 
Sterne was about to cooperate with his neighbours in reclaim- 
ing the waste land of his parish, as well as to compete with 
them in huge crops of oats and barley. 

The Tindall farm, supplemented by these meadows and 
pastures, comprised all the real estate that Sterne purchased 
at Sutton, though land was to come to him in another way to 
be related hereafter. In carrying through the purchases, 
Mrs. Sterne's available fortune was strained to the utmost, 
and additional capital was required, it would seem, for stock- 
ing the farm, for ditching, and for general improvements. 
At any rate, Sterne conveyed on the fifth and sixth of the 
following December the Tindall farm and perhaps the sup- 



MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 59 

plementary fields and meadows to William Shaw, a merchant 
of the city of York. This conveyance was clearly by way of 
mortgage. The high hopes with which Sterne, having once 
purchased the land, set out on his career as farmer, is reflected 
in Tristram Shandy — in the account of the elder Shandy's 
"paring and burning, and fencing in the Ox-moor", "a fine, 
large, whinny, undrained, unimproved common". "It was 
plain", as Mr. Shandy worked out the account, "he should 
reap a hundred lasts of rape, at twenty pounds a last, the 
very first year — besides an excellent crop of wheat the year 
following— and the year after that, to speak within bounds, 
a hundred— but in all likelihood, a hundred and fifty— if not 
two hundred quarters of pease and beans— besides potatoes 
without end." How Sterne's hopes were dashed to the 
ground and how he cursed himself for his folly must be kept 
for a later period. 

Leaving his farming out of the account, Sterne drew 
himself, as Vicar of Sutton, in the character of Parson Yorick. 
Not only is this the tradition, but John Hall-Stevenson, who 
knew Sterne best of all men, looked upon the portrait as 
essentially true, quoting from it himself, as the newspapers 
had often done, the year after his friend's death. Yorick 's 
parish,— "a small circle described upon the circle of the great 
world, of four English miles diameter, or thereabouts"— was 
Sutton laid by the side of Stillington. The "large grange- 
house", where "the good old body of a midwife" found 
hearty welcome, was the residence of the Harlands opposite 
the rectory. It was the parson's wife who established the 
notable woman in her profession, urging Yorick to procure 
the necessary license and recommending her to friends and 
acquaintances. Twice the midwife was summoned to the 
rectory. A daughter, named Lydia from Mrs. Sterne's 
mother and sister, was born and baptised on October 1, 1745, 
and was buried on the next day. Her place was taken by 
another Lydia, who was born and baptised on December 1, 
1747. These records of the parish book, which touched 
Sterne so nearly, stand out prominently in his own hand, 
separated from the usual entries by the clerk and church 
wardens. Perhaps we should not take literally the account 



60 LAURENCE STERNE 

Sterne gives of the thin and lean Yorick riding about his 
parish and among the neighbouring gentry on a broken 
winded pad as thin and lean as himself, drawing up, as he 
jogged along, "an argument in his sermon;— or a hole in his 
breeches". "He never could enter a village", says Sterne, 
"but he caught the attention of both old and young.— Labour 
stood still as he pass 'd— the bucket hung suspended in the 
middle of the well— the spinning-wheel forgot its round,— 
even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping 
till he had got out of sight; and as his movement was not of 
the quickest, he had generally time enough upon his hands to 
make his observations,— to hear the groans of the serious,— 
and the laughter of the light-hearted;— all of which he bore 
with excellent tranquility. ' ' 

This sketch, which furnished the subject for one of 
Stothard's graceful designs, is rather too elaborate and too 
much in the style of Cervantes for exact truth, to say nothing 
of its being an apparent imitation of a passage hi Shake- 
speare's King John. Still, tradition points in the Vicar of 
Sutton to a man who, especially when older, cared little for 
decorum. "So slovenly was his dress and strange his gait", 
antiquary handed down to antiquary, "that the little boys 
used to flock around him and walk by his side." 

Sterne and Yorick were certainly one in temperament. 
Both were compounded of whims and humours; both were 
light-hearted and outspoken. When Sterne described Yorick 
at the age of twenty-six, he described himself also at the 
time when he entered upon the living at Sutton. Of Yorick, 
it is said: 

"His character was,— he loved a jest in his heart. * * * 
he was as mercurial and sublimated a composition,— as 
heteroclite a creature in all his declensions;— with as much 
life and whim, and gaite de cozur about him, as the kindliest 
climate could have engendered and put together. With all 
this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he 
was utterly unpractised in the world; and, at the age of 
twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course 
in it, as a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen: So that 
upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you 



MAKRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 61 

will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a day of somebody's 
tackling ; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest 
in his way,— you may likewise imagine, 'twas with such he 
had generally the ill luck to get the most entangled. For 
aught I know there might be some mixture of unlucky wit 
at the bottom of such Fracas:— For, to speak the truth, Yorick 
had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to 
gravity;— not to gravity as such:— for where gravity was 
wanted, he would be the most grave or serious of mortal 
men for days and weeks together;— but he was an enemy to 
the affectation of it, and declared open war against it, only as 
it appeared a cloak for ignorance, or for folly; and then, 
whenever it fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, 
he seldom gave it much quarter. 

"Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, 
That gravity was an errant scoundrel; and he would add, — 
of the most dangerous kind too, —because a sly one ; and that 
he verily believed, more honest, well-meaning people were 
bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve- 
month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. 
In the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he 
would say, There was no danger, — but to itself ; — whereas the 
very essence of gravity was design, and consequently deceit; 
— 'twas a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more 
sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that, with 
all its pretensions,— it was no better, but often worse, than 
what a French wit had long ago defined it,— viz. A mysterious 
carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind;— which 
definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would 
say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold. 

"But, in plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and 
unpractised in the world, and was altogether as indiscreet 
and foolish on every other subject of discourse where policy 
is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impression but 
one, and that was what arose from the nature of the deed 
spoken of; which impression he would usually translate into 
plain English without any periphrasis, — and too oft without 
much distinction of either person, time, or place;— so that 
when mention was made of a pitiful or an ungenerous pro- 



62 LAUEENCE STEENE 

ceeding,— he never gave himself a moment's time to reflect 
who was the hero of the piece, — what his station, — or how 
far he had power to hurt him hereafter ;— but if it was a 
dirty action,— without more ado,— The man was a dirty 
fellow, — and so on: — And as his comments had usually the 
ill fate to be terminated either in a bon mot, or to be enliven 'd 
throughout with some drollery or humour of expression, it 
gave wings to Yorick' s indiscretion. In a word, tho' he 
never sought, yet, at the same time, as he seldom shunn'd 
occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without much 
ceremony; — he had but too many temptations in life, of 
scattering his wit and his humour, — his gibes and his jests 
about him.— They were not lost for want of gathering." 

Yorick 's good counsellor Eugenius — that is, John Hall- 
Stevenson— was wont to warn him against his indiscretions, 
saying : 

' ' Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine 
will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, 
which no after-wit can extricate thee out of. — In these sallies, 
too oft, I see, it happens, that a person laugh 'd at, considers 
himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights 
of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou viewest 
him in that light too, and reckons up his friends, his family, 
his kindred and allies,— and musters up with them the many 
recruits which will list under him from a sense of common 
danger; — 'tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for 
every ten jokes,— thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till 
thou has gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine 
ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be 
convinced it is so. ' ' 

The only answer that Yorick would make to his friend's 
serious advice was "a pshaw! — and if the subject was started 
in the fields,— with a hop, skip, and a jump at the end of it ; 
but if close pent up in the social chimney-corner, where the 
culprit was barricado'd in, with a table and a couple of arm- 
chairs, and could not so readily fly off in a tangent, — 
Eugenius would then go on with his lecture upon discretion. ' ' 
Yorick thought no ill could come of ''mere jocundity of 
humour", of honest sallies in which there was no "spur 



MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 63 

from spleen or malevolence". But in this he was mistaken. 
As with Yorick so it was with Sterne in a less degree. 
Prudence, caution, discretion, the virtues that smooth one's 
way through life, were ever classed by him among the evil 
propensities of human nature; inasmuch as they check the 
spontaneous act and make one appear other than he really is. 
"I generally act", said Sterne, "upon first impulses", or 
"according as, the fly stings". A sense of humour, held in 
restraint, is often a man's salvation in the affairs of practical 
life. But Sterne, a mere bundle of sensations, was over- 
mastered by his humour. Delightful as he always was among 
friends who understood him, his jests and gibes were a source 
of annoyance to many people who were hard hit by them. 

The clash came early with Philip Harland, his neighbour 
across the way, of whom Sterne wrote laconically just 
before his death: "As to the Squire of the parish, I cannot 
say we were upon a very friendly footing." The Harlands 
had emerged from the yeomanry in the seventeenth century. 
Of Richard Harland, Esq., who died in 1689, at the age of 
ninety-seven, a mural tablet in the parish church says : * ' He 
was a truly brave and honest man. He first engaged himself 
in that Troop of Noblemen and Gentlemen, associated to 
guard their Sovereign's Person at York, and had the Honour 
to serve as Lieutenant to that Body. The Civil Wars in- 
creasing, he adhered to the Royal Cause, in many Battles and 
Skirmishes, particularly with that fatal one of Marston Moor, 
he greatly distinguished himself; during the Usurpation, he 
with many other of the Unfortunate, suffered Fines and 
Imprisonment, untill the year 1660, when Monarchy, Religion, 
and Liberty were restored together. ' ' His grandson Richard, 
who had inherited the estate at Sutton and added largely to 
it, was among the most respected justices of the peace in the 
North Riding. It was of him that Sterne purchased several 
parcels of land already described. By the time Sterne came 
to Sutton, Richard Harland had settled at York as a coun- 
sellor at law, leaving the active management of his estate to 
his eldest son Philip, to whom it subsequently passed by will.* 

* The will was signed July 31, 1747, and proved in the Prerogative 
Court at York, July 3, 1751. The York Courant (May 15) contained 
a glowing obituary notice. 



^4 LAURENCE STERNE 

Besides being in possession of the Grange, and another farm 
called Greenthwaite, and frontsteads and enclosures at Sut- 
ton, Philip Harland also held, under the Archbishop of York, 
a lease of the rectory and the greater tithes of the parish. 
Enough may be gleaned of him to warrant the statement that 
there was little or nothing in common between the squire and 
his vicar. First of all, they differed politically. Harland 
was a Tory who contributed liberally to the county hospital 
at York,* founded by Dr. John Burton, a violent leader of 
his party. Sterne was a Whig who never subscribed a shil- 
ling to the foundation, but ridiculed, as we shall see, the Tory 
physician and all that he stood for. The one was a man of 
practical affairs, dull and grave, while the other was a jester. 
The rubs and vexations that necessarily accompanied them in 
the business of the parish, are darkly hinted at in Tristram 
Shandy along with raillery of the squire's showy activities. 
"A hundred-and-fifty odd projects",— says Sterne of Mr. 
Walter Shandy, while doubtless thinking of Philip Harland— 
"A hundred-and-fifty odd projects took possession of his 
brains by turns— he would do this, and that, and t'other— 
He would go to Rome— he would go to law— he would buy 
stock— he would buy John Hobson's farm— he would new 
forefront his house, and add a new wing to make it even— 
There was a fine water-mill on this side, and he would build 
a windmill on the other side of the river in full view to 
answer it— But above all things in the world, he would 
inclose the great Ox-moor. ' ' In heedless talk like this Sterne 
was also ridiculing himself, but the stolid country squire 
would not understand that. Among other infirmities, the 
squire was accustomed to boast of his ancestry. It was he 
who erected in the parish church the monument to his great- 
grandfather, Richard Harland. Sterne, we may be sure, 
heard the high sounding phrases of the inscription many 
times before they were engraved in marble, and had them in 
memory when he set up an altercation between Walter 
Shandy and my Uncle Toby over the jack-boots that Sir 
Roger, their great-grandfather, wore at Marston Moor. 

Sterne's other parishioners, who lived in "the odd houses 

* York Courant, September 5, 1749. 



MAREIAGE AND SETTLEMENT 65 

and farms" about him, naturally took sides with the parson 
or the squire. Perhaps they had some real grievance against 
Sterne inasmuch as the products of his dairy were sold below 
the market price, then an offence for which one was liable to 
fine and jail. There was a large car, or pond, over on 
Stillington Common, where, it is said, Sterne used to go for 
his skating, when the fly stung him that way. On one occa- 
sion "the Ice broke in with him in the middle of the Pond, 
and none of the Parishioners wou'd assist to extricate him, 
as they were at variance ' \ Similar to this is the story which 
tells how Sterne narrowly escaped an attack from his 
parishioners: "Another time a Flock of Geese assembled in 
the Church Yard at Sutton, when his Wife bawl'd out 
* Laurie, powl 'em,' i.e. pluck the quills, on which they were 
ready to riot and mob Laurie. ' ' 

It would be a mistake to infer from these stories and 
whatever else has been said, that Sterne lived in perpetual 
quarrel with the squire of Sutton and his other parishioners. 
He lacked tact and "good management " in dealing with 
them; and they— steady-going farmers, moving along in the 
paths of ancient habit and custom— could not understand 
the variable temper of their parson. • The result was friction 
which sometimes grated aloud. At times their common 
affairs surely went on smoothly. Many of the trees that 
adorned Sterne's orchard came, says the parish registry, from 
the park of Philip Harland. The vicar and the squire on one 
occasion laid aside all differences and joined hands in enclos- 
ing the common fields and meadows of the parish. The 
anecdotist speaks of pleasant gatherings at the rectory and at 
neighbouring houses, where Sterne performed on the bass-viol 
for his friends; and his wife, who "had a fine voice and a 
good taste in music", sometimes contributed to the enter- 
tainment by accompanying her husband on his favourite 
instrument. 

The vicar and his wife loved best to visit with the Crofts 
at Stillington Hall, whose friendship more than made up for 
the antipathies that existed between them and the Harlands. 
The Crofts, said Sterne in recollection of those days, "shewed 
us every kindness— 'twas most truly agreeable to be within 

5 



66 LAURENCE STERNE 

a mile and a half of an amiable family, who were ever cordial 
friends". The Crofts were an old Yorkshire family of 
merchants and aldermen that had been associated with 
Sterne's own kin for more than a century. One of Sterne's 
ancestors, Roger Jaques, Lord Mayor of York, was knighted, 
it will be remembered, by Charles the First in 1639. Two 
years later the king was again at York, where he was enter- 
tained by the new Lord Mayor, Christopher Croft, whom he 
also knighted before leaving the city. From this Sir Christo- 
pher, the founder of the family, was descended Sterne's 
friend, Stephen Croft. Born on December 8, 1712, less than 
a year before Sterne, Stephen Croft, as a young man, went 
out to Oporto, where he was engaged with others of his family 
in the wine-trade. On the death of his father in 1733, he 
inherited the lordship of Stillington and a large estate— 
various lands and messuages— in the parish. He still kept 
up, after Sterne settled at Sutton, his connection with the 
factory at Oporto, but he then resided for the most part on 
his manor. His "amiable" wife, named Henrietta, was a 
daughter of Henry Thompson of Kirby Hall, Little Ouse- 
burn, a few miles across the country on the way to Knares- 
borough. 

There was also a younger brother, John Croft, who 
"grew up" at Stillington, and afterwards went to Portugal 
to make his fortune. He remembered Sterne well ; and after 
coming back to York and turning antiquary, he wrote of him 
the anecdotes from which we have quoted liberally. Sterne 
was, he said, ' ' a constant Guest at my brother 's Table ' '. The 
two men, Stephen Croft and Laurence Sterne, of the same 
age and of similar family connections, grew to be most con- 
genial companions. The one brought to their common friend- 
ship jests innumerable; the other, the tales and adventures 
that come to a man of the world. Beyond this, Sterne took 
the Crofts into his confidence, telling them what books he 
read and studied most in forming his style ; and there by the 
fireside of Stillington Hall, he read the first chapters of 
Tristram Shandy while it was in manuscript. But for 
Stephen Croft the sheets would have gone into the fire instead 
of to the printer. 



CHAPTER III 

POLITICS AND HONOURS 

1741-1750 

The country parson was also a prebendary of York, who 
took an active part in the politics and intrigues within and 
without the Cathedral Close, at a time when the entire nation 
was stirred by civil and religious commotions. And yet, 
notwithstanding his activity, this is the obscurest phase of 
Sterne's life after he reached man's estate. We know that 
he found time, in the midst of farming and parish business, 
to enter the thick of Yorkshire politics, but for following him 
in his courses there are very few clues, direct and trust- 
worthy. General inference from his character and the posi- 
tion he occupied in the Church of York must be at times our 
main guide. If our narrative, in consequence of this, now 
diverges in places from Sterne himself, it will at least bring 
into view the men with whom he touched elbow as friend and 
enemy; it will explain, too, some of his opinions and preju- 
dices, and furnish the background to the inevitable breach 
with his uncle and mother. 

On first coming to York, Sterne allied himself with the 
men whose voices were most potent in the diocese and chapter. 
The see was then occupied by Lancelot Blackburne, an old 
man above eighty years of age, "the jolly old Archbishop of 
York" — Horace "YValpole called him — "who had all the man- 
ners of a man of quality". Like Sterne, the aged prelate 
was a wit and humourist whose career in the Church had been 
accompanied by ballads and anecdotes charging him with gay 
immoralities. It was he who collated Sterne to the vicarage 
of Sutton. The Dean of the Chapter was Richard Osbaldeston, 
then about fifty years old, a Cambridge man and sometime 
chaplain to George the Second. It was he who issued the 
mandate for Sterne 's induction to Stillington. To him Sterne 

67 



68 LAUEENCE STEENE 

dedicated his first printed sermon "in testimony of the great 
respect which I owe to your character in general; and from 
a sense of what is due to it in particular from every member 
of the Church of York". But the man behind the throne, 
to whom Sterne really owed his first preferments, was of 
course his "rich and opulent uncle", Dr. Jaques Sterne, 
Precentor to the Cathedral and Archdeacon of Cleveland, to 
slip over his several other titles. The old archbishop dying 
in 1743, he was succeeded by Thomas Herring, a handsome 
and dignified ecclesiastic in the very prime of life. A grad- 
uate of Jesus College, the year before Dr. Sterne, he 
subsequently gained reputation as an eloquent preacher at 
Lincoln's Inn Chapel, especially for sermons on the corrupt 
state of contemporary manners and a denunciation of the 
Beggar' } s Opera, a kind of writing unknown to "the venerable 
sages of antiquity". It was reserved for the moderns, said 
the preacher, to discover in "a gang of highwaymen and 
pickpockets a proper subject for laughter and merriment".* 
Afterwards Dean of Rochester and Bishop of Bangor, he 
proved an able administrator, and was duly elevated, as 
aforesaid, to the see of York. 

The new archbishop and Dr. Sterne were much alike in 
temper and opinion; and both were men of tremendous 
energy. From the first they joined hands in support of 
Whig policies through thick and thin and against all Roman 
Catholics, real or imaginary. The year 1745, when Charles 
Edward Stuart returned to claim his own, was a strenuous 
period for them. On July 24 the bold Pretender landed 
with a few friends in the Hebrides, and on August 19, 
unfurled his banner at Glenfinnan. After collecting a small 
army of Highlanders, he marched to Perth, where he rested 
for reinforcements and to discipline his troops. He then 
proceeded to Edinburgh, and met the English at Preston 
Pans on September 21, rushing upon them with a yell through 
the mists of morning and cutting them utterly to pieces. 
He subsequently crossed the English border, forced the 

* See appendix to Letters from Br. Thomas Herring to William 
Duncombe (London, 1777), containing two letters, to the Whitehall 
Evening Post on the Beggar's Opera, dated March 30 and April 20, 
1728* 



POLITICS AND HONOUKS 69 

capitulation of Carlisle, marched south through Penrith, 
Kendal, and Lancaster into Derbyshire, where he was checked 
and turned backwards into Scotland. The last scene of all 
was the terrible carnage of the Duke of Cumberland at Cul- 
loden on April 16, 1746, whence the prince fled, a fugitive 
among the mountains and islands to the west. At York, as 
at other towns in the north, the events of '45 threw the 
people into consternation. For a time shops were closed and 
all business was suspended. Archbishop Herring sounded 
the alarm to the nation in a sermon preached in the cathedral 
on September 22, the day after the defeat at Preston Pans. 
This sermon was preparatory to a plan that the archbishop 
had been maturing for some weeks for uniting the people of 
Yorkshire into an association for "the security of his 
Majesty's Person and government and for the defence of the 
county of York". On September 24, the nobility, clergy, and 
gentry met at the ancient castle of York, where the arch- 
bishop presented the articles of association in an eloquent 
speech,* giving "the reasons of our present assembling ". 
The commotions in Scotland, it was claimed, were but a part 
of a general design concerted for the ruin of England by 
France and Spain, "our savage and bloodthirsty enemies". 
The clergy of the diocese were especially commanded "to 
instruct and animate" their congregations "to stand up 
against Popery and Arbitrary Power under a French and 
Spanish government". By the archbishop's exertions a 
defence fund was collected amounting to £31,364, to which 
Jaques Sterne contributed £50. "Laurence Sterne, clerk", 
it is recorded, "subscribed and paid £10. 10s." and collected 
from his two parishes £15. 14s. 6d.f 

Next to the archbishop, the church politician most active 
at York in 1745 and immediately thereafter was Dr. Jaques 
Sterne. When the Duke of Cumberland returned from the 
victory of Culloden, stopping on his way south at York, where 

* A Speech made by his Grace, the Lord Archbishop of York, at 
Presenting an Association enter' d into at the Castle of York (London, 
1745). 

t An Exact List of the Voluntary Subscribers, with the sums each 
subscrib'd and paid for the Security of his Majesty's Person and 
Government (York, 1747). 



70 LAURENCE STERNE 

he was granted the freedom of the city, he stayed, at his own 
request, with the precentor in the Minster Yard instead of 
with Archbishop Herring or the Lord Mayor. This compli- 
ment to Dr. Sterne is significant of the value that the gov- 
ernment attached to his services. His sermons and addresses 
at the time, to say the truth, rather surpassed the archbishop 's 
in fire and savage denunciation of the Pretender, Jacobites, 
and Roman Catholics. Especially notable is the charge that 
Dr. Sterne delivered to his clergy at Thirsk, a few miles from 
Sutton, and in other parishes of his archdeaconry, during his 
visitations of 1746. It was printed at York the next year 
under the title of The Danger arising to our Civil and 
Religious Liberty from the Great Increase of Papists, and 
the Setting up Public Schools and Seminaries for the Teach- 
ing and Educating of Youth in the pernicious Tenets and 
Principles of Popery. In this pamphlet, which was dedicated 
to the archbishop as the author of "that glorious Association 
# # * a g a i ns t the united Force of Popery and Rebellion", 
the archdeacon sought to revive the old laws of the time of 
Elizabeth and William the Third against saying or hearing 
Mass, proselyting, and Roman Catholic schools. After a 
brief account of the abominations of Popery, it was carefully 
and minutely explained to the clergy how they and the 
church wardens might bring all recusants in their parishes to 
the bar of justice for fine and imprisonment. 

As if in further explanation of how it should be done, 
Dr. Sterne himself proceeded against the so-called "Popish 
Nunnery" at York. Many of the oldest and wealthiest 
families of Yorkshire were still Roman Catholics, and some 
of them had given either open or secret support to the House 
families were accustomed to keep residence on their estates 
of Stuart, both in 1715 and in 1745. Several of these county 
in the country during the summer, and to come into York for 
the winter, . living in large and fine houses with lavish hos- 
pitality in Micklegate, the muckle or great street of the city. 
In a narrow street branching off from Micklegate Bar, they 
established, in 1686, a boarding-school for their daughters, 
and placed in charge of it a Mrs. Paston. The little street 
outside Micklegate Bar soon got the name of Nunnery Lane, 



POLITICS AND HONOUES 71 

and the old brick house where the school was kept became 
known as the Nunnery. Over this institution the Church of 
York was at times very uneasy. In 1714, Mrs. Paston, like 
other Roman Catholics in Micklegate ward, refused to take 
the oath of allegiance to George the First, and in consequence 
her school was closely watched for some time. But every- 
thing became quiet in the course of a few years until the 
disturbances of 1745 and thereafter. Then Dr. Sterne made 
up his mind to put an end to this ''Popish Seminary, set up 
for poisoning the minds of the King's Subjects". Two old 
women then in charge of the school, one of whom was styled 
"the Abbess", were summoned before an ecclesiastic court 
and convicted of recusancy. They were admonished and 
fined twelve pence a Sunday.* Not satisfied with this mild 
punishment, Dr. Sterne proceeded against them under the 
laws against saying or hearing Mass and against a Papist's 
engaging in the education or boarding of youth. The cause 
dragged on in the courts until 1751, when it was dropped. 
Throughout it all the "pious Doctor" was bantered a good 
deal on his "rough methods of making Converts of the 
Ladies" and on "his stale Ecclesiastical tricks". What he 
imagined, in the blindness of his zeal, as a nunnery, was a 
quite harmless boarding-school which flourished long after- 
wards without molestation. 

Dr. Sterne's aide-de-camp, so to speak, during this period 
was his nephew, Laurence Sterne. But of what the young man 
did in the humble capacity, there are, as has been said, no con- 
temporary records. His deeds redounded to the credit or dis- 
credit of his uncle. This part of his life can not be uncovered 
in satisfactory detail. And yet a hint or indication, a tradi- 
tion, and a chance phrase dropped by Sterne among friends in 
later life, are sufficient for a true relation so far as it goes. 
Laurence Sterne was no doubt initiated into York politics 
during the midsummer of 1741, when occurred the general 
election that resulted in the retirement of Sir Robert Walpole. 
At York the contest between Whig and Tory was waged with 
a bitterness unknown for many years. In the poll-books 
published afterwards, each party accused the other of under- 

* YorTc Courant, Oct. 3, 1749, 



72 LAUEENCE STEENE 

hand and disgraceful methods of securing votes, hinting, 
though not openly charging, bribery. Against the Tories, 
a large and influential body containing a majority of the 
country gentlemen, were marshalled the clergy in compact 
and solid ranks, under the leadership of Dr. Sterne and other 
ecclesiastics of high place. Notwithstanding the most strenu- 
ous effort, the Whigs barely succeeded in electing one of their 
candidates to the new Parliament, though he had represented 
York for twenty years and had just been appointed one of 
the lords of the admiralty. Their second candidate was left 
far behind in the polling by the two Tories. What that fierce 
contest meant for the minor clergy and the understrappers 
may be inferred from a brief record to which reference has 
been already made. The Reverend Robert Hitch, Canon and 
Prebendary of North Newbald, "a fine tall personage", said 
Thomas Gent, a York printer and bookseller, "overheated 
himself about obtaining votes for Parliament, that threw him 
into a mortal fever, which * * * conveyed his precious soul, 
I hope, into the regions of a blessed immortality".* That 
Laurence Sterne, then Prebendary of Givendale, likewise 
performed services deemed worthy of reward, seems quite 
clear, though there is no mention of them; for within ten 
days after the death of Mr. Hitch, he was preferred to the 
comfortable prebend so opportunely left vacant. 

Though Sterne likely engaged in the open solicitation of 
votes as well as his predecessor who lost his life thereby, his 
main services to his church and party at this time and in 
succeeding years were performed by his facile pen. To this 
effect we have direct, if vague, statements. "In his younger 
years", so runs a letter of John Croft respecting Sterne, "he 
was a good deal employed by his Uncle in writing political 
Papers and Pamphlets in favour of Sir Robert Walpole's 
Administration". "We have heard", said the Monthly Re- 
view for October, 1775, "of his writing a periodical election- 
eering paper at York in defence of the Whig interest". 
St. James's Chronicle, in its issue of April 10, 1788, had a 
longer version of the same story, which, the correspondent 
claimed, Sterne once told to a friend. "He wrote", it is said 

* Thomas Gent, Life, 194-95. 



POLITICS AND HONOUES 73 

there, "a weekly paper in Support of the Whigs during the 
long Canvass for the great Contested election, * * * and he 
owed his Preferment to that Paper— so acceptable was it to 
the then Archbishop". The essential truth of these tradi- 
tions is confirmed by Sterne himself in his brief autobiog- 
raphy, wherein he says "my uncle * * * quarrelled with me 
# # # Decause i would not write paragraphs in the news- 
papers". 

The only regularly printed newspaper at York was The 
York C our ant, then issued every Tuesday. Though not 
violently partisan in ordinary times, it was owned and con- 
ducted by a Tory, Csesar Ward, the printer and bookseller 
in Coney Street, who practically closed the columns of his 
newspaper to the Whigs during excited canvasses and the 
Jacobite insurrection, turning it into a Tory organ. Only by 
browbeating, was Dr. Sterne then able to get his paragraphs 
inserted into the C our ant. Under these circumstances it was 
necessary for him and his party to print and issue pamphlets 
and temporary sheets. To this work the nephew of Dr. Sterne 
would be expected to contribute his share. Of the pamphlets 
that Laurence wrote at this time, none have yet been iden- 
tified; and we can not place our finger upon any paragraph 
in the newspapers as surely his. But there is a clue to the 
temporary sheet in which he probably bore a hand. The 
Whig printer at York from 1742 to 1752 was John Gilfillan. 
At his press in Coffee Yard were printed the List of the 
Voluntary Subscribers * * * for the Defence of the County 
of York and the various archidiaconal charges of Dr. Sterne. 
On the title-page of the List, bearing date 1747, is an 
announcement beneath the name of John Gilfillan, that at his 
shop "may be had the News-paper call'd The York Journal, 
or the Protestant Courant". Two years before this — on 
January 22, 1744-5, according to a minute of the House of 
Commons— "John Gilfillan, printer of the York Courant, was 
ordered to attend for an article reflecting on Admiral Vernon, 
a member of the House".* In designating the journal that 
had offended, the clerk either made a mistake or purposely 
abbreviated its long title, for Gilfillan never had anything 

t Smith's Old Yorkshire, new series, II, 191 (1890). 



74 LAUBENCE STERNE 

to do with the Tory York Courant. No copy of Gilfillan's 
newspaper, so far as is known, now exists ; bnt Robert Davies, 
a York antiquary of the last century, met with one of 
Gilfillan's advertisements descriptive of his aim. The little 
sheet was to contain "the earliest, best, and most authentic 
accounts of any in the North of England ; and, being entirely 
calculated for the service of the King and country, he hoped 
it would meet with encouragement from all who wished well 
to the present happy establishment in church and state ".f 
With this newspaper, set up probably in 1745, by a Whig 
printer under the patronage of the Church of York, Laurence 
Sterne was undoubtedly closely connected; not perhaps as 
editor, but as a leading contributor by direction of his uncle. 

It may be just surmised, if nothing more, that the easy 
paragraph- writer was the author of various letters to London 
newspapers, during the Jacobite alarm, descriptive of doings 
at York, of arrests, trials, and executions of those unfortunate 
gentlemen who joined the Pretender's army. "On Saturday 
last", to quote a sentence here and there from the York cor- 
respondent to the London Evening Post for November 6-8, 
1746, ' ' On Saturday last eleven of the Rebels under Sentence 
of Death * * * were brought from the Castle in three 
Sledges. * * * They walked up to the Gallows without the 
least Concern, where they prayed very devoutly. After 
which Capt. Hamilton mounted the ladder first, Frazier next, 
and the rest in order. * * * One of them said he died because 
his K — g was not upon the T — e. * * * Captain Hamilton 
was the first whose heart was cut out. * * * We hear that 
Sir David Murray, Bart, and fifty-two more have received 
Notice of Execution for next Saturday." 

In this dreadful work of hunting out the Jacobites and 
bringing them to the bar of justice, no one was more zealous 
than Dr. Sterne. He was so ready, as a magistrate of the 
West Riding, to issue a warrant for commitment on vague 
and hearsay evidence, that the Secretary of State thought it 
necessary on one occasion to reprimand him. Two cases of 
his dealings with well-known Tory physicians of York are of 
especial interest here. One is that of Dr. Francis Drake, the 
* Davies, Memoir of the York Press, 323-24 (London, 1868). 



POLITICS AND HONOUKS 75 

distinguished antiquary and historian, who refused the oaths 
in 1745. Before and after his arrest and release, he assailed 
"Parson St — e" in paragraph after paragraph contributed 
to the York Courant, holding up to scathing ridicule the 
precentor's career in religion and politics. In reply Dr. 
Sterne, who was not permitted to employ the local 'newspaper, 
had recourse to "virulent advertisements", which circulated 
among the coffee-houses* and passed on from hand to hand. 
Whether his nephew collaborated on these satirical pamphlets, 
we do not presume to know; all that can be said is that he 
was then writing for his uncle. The second case is that of 
Dr. John Burton, author and antiquary, who was also sus- 
pected of Jacobitism. In Dr. Sterne's long persecution of 
this able physician, Laurence was closely involved. His 
hatred and contempt for the high-flying Tory amounted to 
an obsession falling little short of insanity. Pilloried again 
and again in Tristram Shandy, Dr. Burton alias Dr. Slop is 
never dropped except to be pilloried a few pages on. 

Three years younger than Laurence Sterne, Burton grad- 
uated, Bachelor of Medicine, from St. John's College, Cam- 
bridge, in 1733, and immediately began the practice of 
medicine at Heath, a Yorkshire village near Wakefield. The 
next year came on a contested election for the county, in 
which "the greatest exertions were made by the friends 
and opponents of Walpole". To the young physician, who 
espoused the Tory side with vehemence, was entrusted the 
entire charge of the electors of Wakefield, where "he was 
very active and vigilant in the discharge of his duties ". 
"On the fourth day of the poll", it is said further, "he con- 
ducted a body of freeholders to York", saw to it that they 
voted, and then watched at a booth till the voting was over. 
The contest resulted in the return of one member on each 
side. Dr. Burton's candidate, Sir Miles Stapleton, headed 
the poll; and Mr. Cholmley Turner, whose canvass was con- 
ducted, as was said earlier, by Dr. Sterne, came in second. 
But for the pernicious activity of the physician of Wakefield, 
the Whigs would have easily elected both of their candidates. 

The election over, Dr. Burton married a small heiress and 
went abroad to complete his medical education. He took the 



76 LAUEENCE STEENE 

degree of M.D. at Rheims and attended the clinics of the 
great Boerhaave at Leyden. On his return he settled per- 
manently at York "as physician and man-mid-wife", where 
he soon became very popular with the poorer classes, for he 
treated them free of charge, and founded, with the aid of 
wealthy friends, a hospital for the city and county of York, 
which was known among his political enemies as the Tory 
Infirmary. Meanwhile Dr. Burton had appeared in print. 
His first effort, which shows the way his studies were tending, 
was An Account of a Monstrous Child, a tract contributed to 
the Edinburgh Medical Essays for 1736. This was followed 
two years later by A Treatise on the Non-naturals, which 
excited the mirth of the author of Tristram Shandy, who 
enquired of the doctor "why the most natural actions of a 
man's life should be called his non-naturals ' \ 

Political animosities, which had long been smouldering, 
again broke out violently in the election of 1741. Dr. Burton 
again became conspicuous and repeated his success of 1734; 
whereupon he was subjected, according to his own narrative, 
to all sorts of abuse and calumny from the Whigs in general 
and from Dr. Sterne in especial. When, for example, Dr. 
Burton, who was living at that time in Coney Street, applied 
to the Corporation for a more respectable residence in the 
centre of the city, his political enemies interfered and tried 
to prevent the lease. He however obtained the large house 
that he desired, and went on with his profession, giving more 
and more attention to obstetrics, which, as a new science, 
exposed him to the ridicule of a large body of men and 
women who were content to have their children brought into 
the world after the aid ways practised by the midwives. 

The year 1745 was now at hand and Dr. Sterne had his 
revenge. On November 22, news reached York that the 
vanguard of the Highlanders was at Kendal. The inhabit- 
ants of York were alarmed lest the rebels should enter York- 
shire and march on to the city. Dr. Burton, who owned two 
farms near Settle, in the West Riding, not far from the 
borders of Lancashire, received permission from the Lord 
Mayor to post west to look after his estates, which seemed to 
be in danger. The rebels, however, took a route to the left 



POLITICS AND HONOURS 77 

of his property, leaving his tenants unharmed. After this 
discovery, the doctor went on to the village of Hornby in the 
North Biding, where he was taken prisoner, while being 
shaved at his inn, by a party of Highlanders, who enter- 
tained him at the castle and then conveyed him south to 
Lancaster. After a few days' detention, he was dismissed 
with a pass for his safety. On reaching York, he was met 
by his enemies, to whom had come rumours of his movements. 
He was immediately— it was November 30— brought before 
Thomas Place the recorder, and Dr. Jaques Sterne, a magis- 
trate for the West Riding, who issued a warrant for his 
commitment to York Castle as "a suspicious person to his 
Majesty's government". During the examination, Dr. Sterne, 
the unfortunate physician alleged, "made a great Blustering, 
and talked much, but it was vox et praeterea nihil; he was 
often in such a Hurry with Party Fury, that he could not 
utter his words for vox faucibus haesit, and he presently 
foamed at the Mouth especially when I laughed at him and 
told him, that I set him and all his Party at Defiance, unless 
false witnesses were to appear, which I own, I was not 
altogether without Apprehensions about".* 

Of what took place on that occasion and subsequently, 
Dr. Sterne published three brief accounts in the newspaper 
that he was then managing at York, presumably in the York 
Journal and Protestant Courant. These notices, it has been 
asserted, though without positive evidence, were written by 
his nephew. The first of them was sent up to The London 
Evening Post, where it appeared in the issue of December 
5-7. This paragraph, in the form of a letter from York, 
dated December 3, has great interest as most likely from the 
pen of Laurence Sterne. It runs as follows: 

"On Saturday last Dr. Burton was committed to the 
Castle, by the Recorder and Dr. Sterne, as Justices for the 
West Riding of this county. It appearing from his own 
Confession, that he went from Settle to Hornby, knowing 
the Rebels were there, and upon a Supposition that the Duke 

* For the whole transaction, see Burton, British Liberty Endangered 
(London, 1749) ; and Kobert Davies, A Memoir of John Burton, in the 
second volume of The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical 
Journal. 



78 LAURENCE STERNE 

of Perth was there, wrote a Letter to him, which being opened 
by Lord Elcho, he was sent for up by two Highlanders to the 
Castle, and, as he says, carried along with them as a Prisoner 
to Lancaster, where he con vers 'd with Lord George Murray, 
and a Person there call'd his Royal Highness Prince Charles. 
There was the greatest Satisfaction expressed at his Com- 
mitment, from the highest to the lowest Person in the City, 
that has been known here upon any Occasion." 

A few days later, Burton applied for release on bail. 
This was refused by Dr. Sterne and three other magistrates, 
and a further charge was preferred against Burton on the 
information of one John Nesbitt, a prisoner in the castle. 
A new warrant of detainer was issued with an order to the 
jailer not to admit the doctor to bail, as the new evidence 
amounted to a charge of high treason. Dr. Burton lost his 
place on the hospital board and it seemed as if he would be 
tried and hanged. But just before the assizes, the Secretary 
of State intervened with an order that the prisoner be con- 
veyed up to London for examination before the Privy Council. 
He was detained for a full year — till March 25, 1747 — when 
he was summoned to the Cockpit and discharged. While in 
London, Dr. Burton conversed with several gentlemen who 
had fought on the Pretender's side at Culloden, and after- 
wards wrote out what he learned from them, in a little book 
entitled A Genuine and True Journal of the Most Miraculous 
Escape of the Young Chevalier (1749). By this time, too, he 
had begun, under the influence of Dr. Drake, his studies in 
archaeology, which resulted in the Monasticon Eboracense, or 
the Ecclesiastical History of Yorkshire (1758), a monument 
to patient labour and research. After his release, Dr. Burton 
resumed his practice and professional studies at York, pub- 
lishing in 1751 An Essay toward a Complete New System 
of Midwifery, and two years later A Letter to William 
Smellie, M.D. of Glasgow, violently attacking the Scotch 
physician's theory and practice of midwifery. Thereafter he 
was known among his enemies as ' ' Hippocrates Obstetricius ' '. 

Despite one's sympathy with the York physician in his 
long persecution, he was, to say the truth, very indiscreet in 
his conduct. Not a Jacobite and Papist surely, his extreme 



POLITICS AND HONOURS 79 

Toryism exposed him to a suspicion of being both, at a i time 
when passions ran so high that little distinction could be 
made between a Tory and a Jacobite and none at all between 
a Jacobite and a Papist. It was then, to quote the doctor 
himself, ' ' tantamount to downright Disaffection, to assert that 
the young Chevalier has not a Cloven foot, or something 
monstrous about him". It must be said, in justice to the 
two Sternes, that the physician excited disgust among many 
others with whom he came into conflict, for he was obstinate, 
noisy, and meddlesome. An elaborate story got into print 
about a fracas that occurred at the inauguration dinner 
given by Henry Jubb, an apothecary, on being elected sheriff 
of York in the autumn of 1754. The dinner was held at the 
sheriff's house in Micklegate. There were present the Lord 
Mayor, who presided according to custom, several alder- 
men, and other leading citizens including the York physician. 
Dr. Burton did not rise with the rest when the Lord Mayor 
proposed a toast "To the glorious and immortal memory of 
King William the Third"; and in consequence hot words 
passed across the table. Mr. George Thompson, a Whig wine- 
merchant, by that time "warmed with the convivial glass", 
just slightly filliped a cork towards the doctor in way of 
derision; and a few minutes afterwards tried to compel him 
to drink "Everlasting disappointment [or "damnation", Dr. 
Burton said] to the Pretender and all his adherents". Bur- 
ton said that he had religious scruples against drinking 
damnation to anybody. "A most extraordinary scene of 
riot and disorder ensued". The guests jumped upon the 
table ; the doctor brandished his cane right and left, levelling 
to the floor two gentlemen, one of whom "collared him, tore 
his shirt and scratched his neck". At length an attorney-at- 
law wrested the weapon from Burton and threw it into the 
fire. The scuffle ended with the forcible ejection of the 
infuriated physician.* 

The name of Laurence Sterne does not appear in the list 
of distinguished guests who attended this "entertainment", 

* See An Account of What Passed between Mr. George Thompson 
of York and Br. John Burton * * ' at Mr. Sheriff Jubb's Entertain- 
ment (London, 1756). 



80 LAURENCE STESNE 

as it was mildly called, at Mr. Sheriff Jubb's. But whether 
present or not, he shared in the violent hostility of his party 
towards Dr. Burton. We can not say when and where 
Sterne and Burton first came into conflict. We can only 
point to the contested election of 1741 and the proceedings 
against the physician in 1745-46, as the probable occasions, at 
a time when the young prebendary was closely associated with 
his uncle in electioneering and paragraph-writing. Burton's 
books on midwifery he read, and laughed at them. No 
sooner was Tristram Shandy out than everybody at York 
knew that Dr. Slop and Dr. Burton were one. As if to make 
the identification perfectly clear, Sterne paraphrased an 
amusing passage in Burton's attack on Dr. William Smellie 
of Glasgow; wherein the Scotch physician was accused of 
converting the drawing of a petrified child in an old medical 
treatise into a full-fledged author, who of course had never 
existed.* Dr. Burton, as he appears under the name of 
Dr. Slop, was the bungling man-midwife to whom Tristram 
Shandy owed his broken nose. In appearance the accoucheur, 
as he wished to be called, was a "little squat, uncourtly 
figure * * * of about four feet and a half perpendicular 
height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, 
which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horse- 
guards". It was his custom to ride "a little diminutive 
pony, of a pretty colour— but of strength— alack!— scarce 
able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel". 
Slung at the doctor's back might be seen a "green bays bag", 
in which jingled, as he rode along, his new-invented "instru- 
ments of salvation and deliverance". Dr. Slop runs through 
Tristram Shandy, an ill-tempered, ill-mannered, and vulgar 
Papist, the butt of all the current jests and prejudices 
against Eoman Catholics. 

Sterne's frightful caricature of an able physician and 
learned antiquary is unexplainable without reference to the 

* ' ' If any thing can be added to shock human Faith, or prejudice 
your Character as an Historian or Translator, it is your having con- 
verted Lithopaedii Senonensis Icon, (which you call Lithopedus Seno- 
nensis) an inanimate, petrified Substance, into an Author, after you 
had been six years cooking up your Book." — Letter to Smellie, p. 1 
(London, 1753). Compare Tristram Shandy, footnote to ch. XIX, 
bk. II. 



POLITICS AND HONOUBS 81 

fierce religious passions awakened by the events of 1745, 
when every church, from the Cathedral of St. Peter's to the 
remotest parish, rang with denunciations of Eome and all her 
ways. Archbishop Herring set the pace for his clergy when 
he announced from the pulpit that "no nation * * * can 
possibly be happy under Popery", for "it sinks the spirits 
of men and damps the vigour of life", and then went on to 
ascribe the dreadful state of society to contamination with 
"a Popish abjured Pretender". "Things every Day", de- 
clared the preacher, waxing eloquent in his rhetoric, ' ' Things 
every Day proceed from bad to worse : Magistracy is con- 
temned, Dignity and Order sunk to the common Level, 
Adultery and vagrant uncleanliness is become an epidemicall 
evil."* This cry was taken up by the archdeacons and 
carried to the country parsons. Sterne, like the rest, heeded 
the call. He was at York Castle, we may count upon it, when 
the clergy and gentry entered into the association for the 
defence of Yorkshire, and at Thirsk when his uncle laid bare 
the abuses and horrors of the Church of Rome. His own 
sermons, such as without doubt belong to this period, might 
have been written, so far as their tone is concerned, either by 
the archbishop or by the archdeacon. The point of difference 
is but one of style. Neither of the men in higher place 
defined Popery, with reference to penances and indulgences, 
quite so neatly as Sterne when he called it "a pecuniary 
system, well contrived to operate upon men's passions and 
weakness, whilst their pockets are o 'picking". He preached 
eloquently against the Mass and its mummeries, auricular 
confession, the arts of the Jesuits, and "the cruelties, mur- 
ders, rapine, and bloodshed" that have ever accompanied 
Rome in her history. The long wars of his time, the high tax 
rate in consequence of them, and the pestilence that swept 
over the cattle after the insurrection of 1745, leaving "no 
herd in the stalls", he regarded as the last judgment of the 
Almighty upon a people who had forgotten the ways of 
righteousness, and were listening to the seductions of Jesuit 
missionaries. 

* A Sermon Preached at Kensington on Wednesday, the Seventh of 
January (London, 1747). 
6 



82 LATJBENCE STERNE 

It was a red-letter day in the life of the young prebendary 
when he rose into the pulpit of St. Peter's before a large 
and distinguished congregation, and drew for them the por- 
trait of a victim of the Inquisition. "Behold", spoke the 
preacher as if out of a romance, ' ' Behold religion with mercy 
and justice chain 'd down under her feet, — there sitting 
ghastly upon a black tribunal, propp'd up with racks and 
instruments of torment.— Hark!— What a piteous groan!— 
See the melancholy wretch who utter 'd it, just brought 
forth to undergo the anguish of a mock trial, and endure the 
utmost pains that a studied system of religious cruelty has 
been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered 
up to the tormentors. His body so wasted with sorrow and 
long confinement, you'll see every nerve and muscle as it 
suffers. — Observe the last movement of that horrid engine. — 
What convulsions it has thrown him into. Consider the 
nature of the posture in which he now lies stretch 'd. — What 
exquisite torture he endures by it.— 'Tis all nature can bear. 
— Good God ! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging on his 
trembling lips, willing to take its leave,— but not suffered to 
depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell, — 
dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames, — and the insults 
in his last agonies."* 

Sterne 's intense hatred of the Church of Rome, which car- 
ried him, with the rest of his party, to the verge of madness, 
was a phase of his early development that endured until he 
came to visit France and Italy and move freely among all 
classes in the two countries. Not till then was he aware that 
it was possible for Roman Catholics to be content and happy. 
In the meantime his feelings against Rome naturally became 
less violent as his mind was drawn to other things. Imme- 
diately after the Jacobite crisis, various important changes 
affecting his own career took place in the Church of York. 
In the autumn of 1747, Archbishop Herring was translated to 
the see of Canterbury in recognition of "his tried loyalty and 
known zeal in the cause of Protestantism". His place was 
filled by Matthew Hutton, formerly Bishop of Bangor. 
Richard Osbaldeston, Dean since 1728 of the York Chapter, 
* The Abuses of Conscience, July 29, 1750. 



POLITICS AND HONOURS 83 

was likewise elevated to the bishopric of Carlisle. His 
successor was John Fount ay ne, Prebendary of Salisbury 
and Canon of Windsor. Dr. Sterne was disappointed of 
immediate reward, for he had lost favour at home because 
of his persecution of Dr. Burton and the ' ' Popish Nunnery ' ' ; 
and his Majesty's ministers thought he ought to be satisfied 
with the various sinecures which he already enjoyed. At 
one time he offered £200 for the freedom of the city of York ; 
but the Corporation, in spite of the inducement, refused him 
the honour. Pie tried for the deanery of York and for prebends 
at Westminster, Windsor, and Canterbury, in all of which he 
missed his aim. But in lieu of these places, he was trans- 
ferred, in 1750, from the archdeaconry of Cleveland to that 
of the richer East Riding, and five years later he was 
appointed to the second prebendal stall in Durham Cathedral. 
There are extant several amusing letters* of his to the Duke 
of Newcastle, in which the pluralist pleads for these and 
other preferments, urging in his own behalf long and faithful 
services to church and state. The one asking for Durham 
is typical. It runs as follows: 
"My Lord 

"I hope Your Grace finds that it is not in my nature to 
be troublesome in my Solicitations ; and indeed I am the less 
so, as I had the Honour of being taken in so kind a manner 
under Your immediate Protection. But hearing of the 
Bishop of Gloucester's Death, in my Passage thro' this Town 
to Bath, I am willing to hope that I shall not be thought 
impertinent in acquainting Your Grace that a Prebend in 
the Church of Durham, where there are two Vacant, as it lies 
near my other Preferments, will be equally agreeable to me, 
as either Westminster, Windsor, or Canterbury ; but I submit 
it intirely to Your Grace's Judgment and Pleasure, only 
begging Leave to hope that as I have spent now upwards of 
Thirty five years in a faithful Service of the Crown, at an 
Expence that I believe no Clergyman else has done, that I 
shall, thro' Your Grace's Friendship and Goodness, receive 
a Mark of the King's Favour at this time, when there are so 
many Stalls vacant in different Churches: 
* British Museum, Additional MSS, 32719-30. 



g4 LAUEENCE STEENE 

"There will be no one with more Gratitude, as there has 
been none with greater zeal thro' life, 

"My Lord, 

"Your Grace's 

"Most Dutiful and 
' ' Westminster— September ' ' Devoted Servant 

the 19th 1752— "Jaques Sterne" 

In reply Newcastle asked Dr. Sterne for a list of his 
present holdings with their value, as preliminary to further 
grants. The list, which was duly written out and sent to 
the duke, contains these large items : 

"A Prebend of Southwell. The reserv'd Kent of which 
is only £17 — 15s. — 0, but there is a Corpse belonging to it at 
South-Muskham, of about £200 a year, and an House at 
Southwell. 

"The Vicarage of Hornsea Cum Riston, in the East 
Riding of Yorkshire, worth £150— 

"The Rectory of Rise something above £90. 

"He has nothing else but the Arch-Deaconry, where he 
lives, worth about £60— and a Residentiaryship and Preeen- 
torship of York, which are inseparable in His Case, because 
if he parted with the Precentor ship, he cou'd not continue 
Residentiary— worth betwixt three and four hundred pounds 
a year communibus annis. " 

Dr. Sterne's income, about £900 a year, as it appears 
from the memorandum, was really large for the eighteenth 
century, though the pluralist, with his lack of humour, could 
not see it that way. 

His nephew undoubtedly expected promotion like the rest. 
If his services were less conspicuous than theirs, he was cer- 
tainly regarded at that time as a young clergyman of unusual 
ability, for he was invited to preach at York on two extra- 
ordinary occasions. At that time the city supported two 
charities for maintaining and educating poor children — the 
Blue Coat School for boys, and the Grey Coat School for girls. 
On Good Friday, April 17, 1747, the young prebendary 
delivered in the parish church of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, by 
the great minster, the annual sermon for the benefit of these 






POLITICS AND HONOUKS 85 

foundations. Besides the usual congregation of commoners, 
there were present the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs, in 
full official capacity. The preacher most aptly chose for his 
theme "the miracle wrought in behalf of the widow of 
Zarephath, who had charitably taken Elijah under her roof, 
and administered unto him in a time of great scarcity and 
distress". Already a master of his art, Sterne rose, by one 
picturesque passage after another, to the pathetic climax 
where Elijah restores the widow's dead child to life, and, 
taking it in his arms, places it once more in the bosom of its 
mother. Finally came the direct appeal to the congregation, 
that the unfortunate children among them might not be sent 
out into a "vicious world" without friends and instruction. 
The appeal was heeded, for the collection amounted to more 
than sixty-four pounds.* A few weeks later the sermon 
appeared in print as a sixpenny pamphlet, bearing the title 
The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath Consider' d, 
and dedicated to * ' The Very Eeverend Richard Osbaldeston ' ', 
who had' not yet received his appointment to Carlisle. 

Eloquent as Sterne was on charity, he greatly surpassed 
that effort in the sermon preached in the cathedral at the 
close of the summer assizes, on July 29, 1750. The oppor- 
tunity came to him as chaplain for that year to Sir William 
Pennyman, the high sheriff of the county of York. In the 
congregation were the judges for the summer session, "the 
Hon. Mr. Baron Clive and the Hon. Mr. Baron Smythe", the 
high sheriff and the gentlemen of the grand jury, the clergy of 
the cathedral, and commoners to the number of a thousand. 
For this official function the preacher selected as text a sen- 
tence from St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews: "For we trust 
we have a good conscience". Sterne began, as was hence- 
forth to be his way on great occasions, by half denying the 
assertion of his text. In this instance was set up the claim 
against the Apostle that any man, if he thinks about it at all, 
ought to know whether he has a good conscience or not; it 
should be for him a matter of knowledge, not merely of 
trust, St. Paul to the contrary notwithstanding. After 
winning attention by this startling device, Sterne proceeded 
* General Advertiser, April 25, 1747. 



£6 LAURENCE STERNE 

to draw from life admirable character-sketches of various 
types of men, ranging from the openly vicious to the casuist 
who permits conscience to be dethroned from the judgment- 
seat by passion, greed, self interest, or false notions of honour. 
On the way he stopped for a gay thrust at his banker and 
physician, " neither of them men of much religion", to whom 
he trusted his fortune or life, simply because it was for their 
advantage to deal honestly with him : because, he said, ' ' they 
cannot hurt me without hurting themselves more". But in 
case it should be to the interest of the one, added the 
preacher, "to secrete my fortune and turn me out naked in 
the world", or of the other to "send me out of it and enjoy 
an estate by my death without dishonour to himself or his 
art", then no dependence could be placed upon these men 
who make a jest of religion and treat its sanctions with con- 
tempt. Running all through the sermon, as an adroit com- 
pliment to the judges, were images and phrases taken from 
the procedure of law-courts, reaching their climax at the 
close, where Sterne likened conscience to "a British judge in 
this land of liberty, who makes no new law, but faithfully 
declares that glorious law which he finds already written". 
At "the unanimous request" of "many Gentlemen of 
Worth and Character ' ', the sermon was sent to the local press 
as a sixpenny pamphlet under the title of The Abuses of Con- 
science. On the title-page were the names of the two hon- 
ourable judges; and the dedication was inscribed to "Sir 
William Pennyman, Bart." and a long list of grand jurors. 
So well did Sterne himself like this clever sermon— the most 
closely reasoned discourse that ever came from his pen — 
that he afterwards slipped it into Tristram Shandy, where 
Dr. Slop, alias Dr. Burton, who surely was not present on its 
first delivery, was at length compelled to listen to it from the 
lips of Corporal Trim. 



CHAPTER IV 

QUARREL WITH HIS UNCLE 
1747-1751 

These unusual honours which Sterne was receiving were 
accompanied by no important advancement, owing, in the 
first place, to dissensions in the Church of York. During the 
crisis of 1745, the clergy suspended their petty differ- 
ences and united against a common enemy in defence of the 
House of Hanover and the Church of England. But no sooner 
was the danger over, than they began once more to intrigue 
against one another, each seeking his own advantage without 
much regard to his associates. From the first there was 
friction between the new archbishop and the new dean, the 
one accusing the other of encroaching upon his rights and 
prerogatives, with the result that two more or less distinct 
parties were formed within the York Chapter. On the one 
side were Archbishop Hutton and Dr. Jaques Sterne, with 
their followers, men of the same age and similar political and 
religious opinions. Against them were Dean Fountayne 
and several of the more liberal canons and prebendaries, 
including Laurence Sterne, who was an old college friend of 
the dean. These antagonisms hastened what was sure to 
come at some time, first an estrangement and then an open 
and bitter quarrel between the two Sternes, uncle and 
nephew. In 1747, or thereabouts., occurred a hot scene 
between the two divines, in the course of which Sterne told 
his uncle that he would write no more political paragraphs 
for him. This scene very likely announced the end of the 
newspaper established at York under the auspices of the 
Whigs. "I * * * detested such dirty work", said Sterne 
long afterwards, ' ' thinking it beneath me ' '. And to a friend 
he wrote: ''I am tired of employing my brains for other 

people's advantage 'Tis a foolish sacrifice I have made for 

87 



88 LAUEENCE STEENE 

some years to an ungrateful person/ ' The same tale was 
told by the wiseacres who gathered at the York coffee- 
houses, only they added that the quarrel was really over "a 
favourite mistress of the Precentor's", who loved Laurie too 
well. 

In return Dr. Sterne denounced his nephew as "un- 
grateful and unworthy ' ', and inveighed against him furiously 
in letters to mutual friends. The nephew, if we interpret 
aright a passage in Tristram Shandy, accused his uncle of 
being at the head of "a grand confederacy" against him; of 
playing the part, as it were, of Malice in a melodrama, who 
sets on "Cruelty and Cowardice, twin ruffians" to waylay a 
traveller in the dark. "The whole plan of the attack", says 
the passage, "was put in execution all at once,— with so little 
mercy on the side of the allies,— and so little suspicion in 

Yorick, of what was carrying on against him, that when he 

thought, good easy man! full preferment was o 'ripening, 

they had smote his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy 
man had fallen before him." Yorick 's head was so bruised 
and misshapen by these unhandsome blows that he declared, 
quoting Sancho Panza, that should he recover and "Mitres 
thereupon be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as 
hail, not one of them would fit it". 

Though the quarrel had been long brewing, the first 
serious blow, however, was struck, not at Sterne's head, but, 
highwayman like, at his purse. As Prebendary of North 
Newbald, Laurence Sterne preached in the cathedral twice 
every year, on the sixth Sunday in Lent, and on the nine- 
teenth Sunday after Trinity, when the harvesting of his 
crops was over.* Prebendaries and other officials who from 
sickness, distance, or disinclination found it impossible or 
inconvenient to take their turns at preaching, were accus- 
tomed to engage a brother living near by. Their agent in 
the negotiations was sometimes John Hildyard, a York book- 
seller, who knew everybody and whose shop in Stonegate 
was a gathering place for the minor clergy. Sterne liked to 

* A table of preachers containing Sterne 's dates is given by Thomas 
Ellway in Anthems * * * as they are now Perform' d in the Cathedral 
* * * of York * * * Durham * * * Lincoln (York, 1753). 



QUARREL WITH HIS UNCLE 89 

supply the places of others for the addition which it brought to 
his income. Writing to his archdeacon in 1750, he said : ' * My 
daughter will be Twenty Pounds a better Fortune by the 
favours I've received of this kind * * * this Year; and as 
so much at least is annually and without much trouble to be 
picked up in our Pulpit, by any man who cares to make the 
Sermons, you who are a Father will easily excuse my motive. ' ' 

It was no hard labour. The sermons were usually per- 
functory, and Sterne could drive into York on a Sunday 
morning, breakfast with a friend, preach in the cathedral, 
and be back at Sutton or Stillington for the evening service. 
It meant a little physical exertion; nothing more. Dean 
Fountayne and various prebendaries, who were friends to 
Sterne, gave him their less important turns, and even his 
uncle down to 1750 permitted him to take his place on the 
twenty-ninth of May, a day of thanksgiving for the restora- 
tion of Charles the Second. All went on well until late in 
the autumn of 1750, when Dr. Sterne suddenly awoke to the 
fact that his nephew was earning too much in this business. 
On All Saints of that year Sterne came in and preached for 
the dean. It was a hollow and conventional sermon worked 
over from Tillotson on the text, "For our conversation is in 
heaven", and keyed to the tune: "Here we consider ourselves 

only as pilgrims and strangers. Our home is in another 

country, where we are continually tending; there our hearts 
and affections are placed; and when the few days of our 
pilgrimage shall be over, there shall we return, where a quiet 
habitation and a perpetual rest is designed and prepared for 
us for ever." Just after the sermon Sterne strolled into 
Hildyard's shop to enquire about preaching a week or two 
later for Francis Blackburne, Archdeacon of Cleveland in 
succession to Dr. Sterne. Whereupon he discovered that his 
uncle was intervening against this source of his supply. 
There ensued a lively dialogue, which was broken off on the 
word impudence by the entrance of Dr. William Herring, 
the Chancellor of the diocese. Sterne related the whole story 
of the angry encounter in a letter to his archdeacon, dated at 
Sutton, November 3, 1750: 

"I step'd," says Sterne, "into his [Hildyard's] shop 



90 LAURENCE STERNE 

just after Sermon on All Saints, when with an Air of much 
Gravity and Importance, he beckon 'd me to follow him into 
an inner Room. No sooner had he shut the Dore, but with 
the awful Solemnity of a Premier who held a Lettre de 

Cachet upon whose Contents my Life or Liberty depended 

after a Minut 's Pause he thus opens his Commission : ' Sir 

My Friend the A. Deacon of Cleveland, not caring to 

preach his Turn, as I conjectured, has left me to provide a 
Preacher,' but before I can take any Steps in it with Re- 
gard to you — I want first to know, Sir, upon what Footing 

you and Dr. Sterne are?' — 'Upon what Footing!' 'Yes 

Sir, How your Quarel stands?' 'What's that to you — 

How our Quarel stands! What's that to you, you Puppy?' 

'But Sir, Mr. Blackburn would know' 'What's that to 

him?' 'But Sir, don't be angry, I only want to know of 

you, whether Dr. Sterne will not be displeased in Case you 

should preach' 'Go Look; I've just now been preaching 

and you could not have fitter Opportunity to be satisf yed. ' — 
'I hope, Mr. Sterne, you are not Angry.' 'Yes I am; But 
much more astonished at your Impudence.' I know not 
whether the Chancellor's stepping in at this Instant and flap- 
ping to the Dore, did not save his tender Soul the Pain of the 
last Word. However that be, he retreats upon this unexpected 
Rebuff, takes the Chancellor aside, asks his Advice, comes 
back Submissive, begs Quarter, tells me Dr. Hering had quite 
satisf yed him as to the Grounds of his Scruple (tho' not of his 
Folly) and therefore beseeches me to let the Matter pass, and 

to preach the Turn. When I as Percy complains in 

Harry 4 

— All smarting with my Wounds 



To be thus pesterd by a Popinjay 
Out of my Grief and my Impatience 
Answerd neglectingly, I know not what 

for he made me Mad 

To see him shine so bright and smell so sweet 

And talk so like a waiting Gentlewoman 

— Bid him be Gone — and seek Another fitter for his Turn. 



QUAEEEL WITH HIS UNCLE 91 

"But as I was too angry to have the perfect Faculty of 
recollecting Poetry, however pat to my Case, so I was forced 

to tell him in plain Prose tho' somewhat elevated That I 

would not preach, and that he might get a Parson wh[erever 
he] could find one." 

At this point, Hildyard produced his letter from the arch- 
deacon with reference to the supply. After reading it and 
finding that it contained only "a cautious hint" against 
offending the precentor, Sterne cooled his angry humour and 
decided to take the turn. Three days later, as he was on his 
way to the postoffice with the letter from which we have 
quoted, Sterne met the bookseller, who pressed him not to let 
the matter transpire. Though Sterne "half promised" to 
hold back the letter, he finally sent it, after opening it and 
adding a strange postscript to the effect that it should do Mr. 
Hildyard no harm. The next week Sterne again wrote to the 
archdeacon, this time humbly apologising for his heat. "It 
was my anger", he said finely, "and not me, so I beg this 
may go to sleep in peace with the rest. ' ' But it was too late 
for peace, though the archdeacon himself greatly wished it; 
for Dr. Sterne was soon informed of what had occurred in 
the bookseller's shop. On the sixth of the following Decem- 
ber he signed the reprobation of his nephew in a letter to 
Archdeacon Blackburne, beginning: 
"Good Mr. Archdeacon, 

"I will beg Leave to rely upon your Pardon for taking 
the Liberty I do with you in relation to your Turns of 
preaching in the Minster. What occasions it, is Mr. Hild- 
yard 's employing the last time the only person unacceptable 
to me in the whole Church, an ungrateful and unworthy 
Nephew of my own, the Vicar of Sutton; and I shoud be 
much obligd to you, if you woud please either to appoint 
any person yourself, or leave it to your Register to appoint 
one when you are not here. If any of my turns woud suit 
you better than your own, I woud change with you." 

Despite this brand upon him, it seemed for the moment 
as if the Vicar of Sutton might win in the struggle with his 
uncle. Joined with Dr. Sterne against him were Archbishop 
Hutton and Dr. Francis Topham, the legal adviser to many 



92 LAUEENCE STEENE 

of the clergy. For him were Dean Fountayne, Archdeacon 
Blackburne, Chancellor Herring, and most of the active 
men in the York chapter, inclnding the two resident canons 
— Charles Cowper and William Berdmore, a man, said 

Sterne, "of a gentle and pacific temper", and Jacob 

Custobadie, registrar and chamberlain to the dean and chapter. 
Besides all these sympathisers, a close friendship was forming 
between Sterne and Thomas, fourth Viscount Fauconberg of 
Newburgh Priory, in whose extensive manor lay Sutton-on- 
the-Forest and other townships in the York valley. The vis- 
count (created earl in 1756) was then a lord of his Majesty's 
bedchamber and member of the Privy Council. His rank and 
his age — he was above fifty years old — perhaps precluded the 
easy intercourse that the Yicar of Sutton enjoyed with his 
fellow canons and prebendaries. He was rather a patron to 
whom Sterne looked for another and a better living. But 
under the circumstances, any signal preferment was impos- 
sible, for it would require the sanction of the Archbishop of 
York, with whom the Vicar of Sutton was out of favour. 
When, for example, the perpetual curacy of Coxwold, within 
the nomination of Lord Fauconberg, became vacant in 1753, 
Sterne had to be passed by for his former curate, Kichard 
Wilkinson. 

There were, however, within the sole gift of his friends 
several small offices that might be bestowed upon him as a 
mark of favour and confidence. Without hesitancy, Lord 
Fauconberg led the way by appointing him Commissary of 
the Peculiar and Spiritual Jurisdiction of Alne and Tollerton, 

which included also Skelton and Wigginton parishes in the 

North Riding over which the Fauconbergs had exercised, 
under the Dean of York, important rights since the dissolu- 
tion of the monasteries. On December 29, 1750, three weeks 
after he had been denounced by his uncle, Sterne appeared at 
the deanery, where he took the usual oaths and designated 
his surrogates who were to act in his stead in case of absence.* 
Six months later fell vacant the similar Commissaryship of 

* The record of the appointment in the Diocesan Eegistry of York 
is accompanied by memoranda of the annual visitations made by Sterne 
and his surrogates, beginning in 1751 and ending in 1767. 



QUAEEEL WITH HIS UNCLE 93 

the Peculiar Court of Pickering and Pocklington, which 
formed a part of the dean's immediate jurisdiction, inde- 
pendent of the archbishop or the York chapter. For this 
office were pitted against each other Laurence Sterne and 
Dr. Topham, his uncle's candidate. After a noisy clash of 
arms, during which the lie was freely passed, Sterne received 
the appointment, but only by engendering hatreds so acri- 
monious that they could never be allayed. These two offices 
that Sterne thus obtained were as much civil as ecclesiastical. 
It was in both cases the incumbent's duty to make annual 
visitations of the clergy within his jurisdiction for proving 
wills and granting letters of administration, for swearing in 
church wardens and receiving their presentments of eccle- 
siastical offences, and for looking after the morals of the 
district generally. The fees from the two commissaryships 
both together amounted to but little. Prom the first Sterne 
received in no year more than two pounds and some odd 
shillings, and the second was estimated at only five or six 
guineas. But they were much coveted by cathedral officials, 
for they gave the incumbent an honourable position among 
the clergy of the diocese as a direct representative of the 
Dean of York and the lord of the manor. 

It is not said how Dr. Sterne regarded these honours to 
his ungrateful nephew or his appointment the year before 
as chaplain to Sir William Pennyman, whereby he was 
enabled to preach an extraordinary sermon before an extra- 
ordinary congregation in the great cathedral. But that they 
set his wrath in a flame may be inferred from the brutal 
course which he was now taking to crush him forever. 
"When to justify a private appetite", says the author of 
Tristram Shandy, conveying a passage from Archbishop 
Tenison on Lord Bacon, "it is once resolved upon, that an 
innocent and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis an easy 
matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it 
has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with". So it was 
in this case. Sterne's ill treatment of his mother and sister 
Catherine — still a persisting legend — had long been given out 
by Dr. Sterne as the first cause of estrangement. After the 
death of Roger Sterne, his widow and daughter, as has been 



94 LAUEENCE STEENE 

said in a previous chapter, settled on a government pension 
at Clomnel in Ireland. Sometime in 1742 they came over to 
England on hearing that Laurie had married an heiress. 
For a time they were persuaded to live in Chester, but by 
1747 or thereabouts, they moved to York, near what they 
supposed was inexhaustible wealth. Thenceforth these un- 
fortunate women were tossed to and fro in the quarrel, not 
as any real cause of it out as available weapons. At various 
times the nephew tried to patch up a friendship with his 
uncle, but all attempts were vain. As early as 1747, he 
wrote to Dr. Sterne, requesting him to arrange a conference 
with his wife instead of himself, that there might be no 
explosion of temper. And late in 1750, Dean Fountayne 
sought to bring together mother, son, and uncle for a com- 
plete understanding. This friendly mediation also failed. 
Three months later Dr. Sterne struck his final blow. He 
placed Mrs. Sterne and her daughter Catherine in some char- 
itable institution at York, perhaps the workhouse or "the 
common gaol", and then spread the report that they were 
there by neglect of the Vicar of Sutton. Stunned by the 
blow, Laurence Sterne at once sat down and wrote the fol- 
lowing long letter, dated Sutton, April 5, 1751, to his uncle 
in defence of his conduct: 

"Sir, — 'Tis now three years since I troubled you with a 
letter in vindication of myself in regard of my Mother, in 
which that I might give you all imaginable conviction, how 
barbarously she had dealt by me, and at the same time how 
grossly she had deceived you by the misrepresentation which 

I found she had made of my behaviour towards her 1 

desired my wife might have leave to wait upon you to lay 
the state of our circumstances fairly before you, and with 
that the account of what we had done for my Mother, that 
from a view of both together you might be convinced how 
much my Mother has complained without reason. 

"My motive for offering to send my wife rather than 
myself upon this particular business, being first merely to 
avoid the occasion of any heat which might arise betwixt you 
and me upon any thing foreign to the Errand, which might 
possibly disapoint the end of it and secondly as I had rea- 



QTJAEEEL WITH HIS UNCLE 95 

son to think your passions were pre-engaged in this affair and 
that the respect you owed my wife as a gentlewoman would 
be a check against their breaking out ; and consequently that 
you would be more likely to give her a candid hearing, 
which was all I wished, and indeed all that a plain story 
to be told without Art or Management could possibly stand 
in want of. As you had thought proper to concern yourself 
in my Mother's complaints against me, I took it for granted 
you could not deny me so plain a piece of Justice, so that 
when you wrote me word back by my servant ' You desired 
to be excused from any conference with my wife, but that I 

might appear before you' As I foresaw such an Interview 

with the sense I had of such a treatment was likely to produce 
nothing but an angry expostulation (which could do no good, 
but might do hurt ) , I begged in my turn to be excused ; and 
as you had already refused so unexceptionable an offer of 
hearing my defence, I supposed in course you would be silent 
for ever after upon that Head; and therefore I concluded 
with saying, 'as I was under no necessity of applying to you 
and wanted no man's direction or advice in my own private 
concerns, I would make myself as easy as I could, with the 
consciousness of having done my Duty and of being able to 
prove I had whenever I thought fit, and for the future that 
I was determined never to give you any further trouble 
upon the subject*. 

"In this resolution I have kept for three years and 
should have continued to the end of my life — but being told 
of late by some of my friends that this clamour has been kept 
up against me, and by as singular a Stroke of 111 design as 
could be levelled against a defenceless man, who lives retired 
in the country and has few opportunities of disabusing the 
world; that my Mother has moreover been fixed in that very 
place where a hard report might do me (as a Clergyman) the 

most real disservice* 1 was roused by the advice of my 

friends to think of some way of defending myself, which I 
own I should have set about immediately by telling my story 
publickly to .the world but for the following inconvenience, 
that I could not do myself justice this way without doing 

* ' ' The common gaol. ' ' 



96 LAURENCE STERNE 

myself an injury at the same time by laying open the naked- 
ness of my circumstances, which for aught I knew was likely 
to make me suffer more in the opinion of one half of the 
world than I could possibly gain from the other part of it by 
the clearest defence that could be made. 

''Under the distress of this vexatious alternative I went 
directly to my old friend and college acquaintance, our 
worthy Dean, and laid open the hardship of my situation, 
begging his advice what I should best do to extricate myself. 
His opinion was that there was nothing better than to have a 
Meeting, face to face with you, and my Mother ; and with his 
usual friendship and humanity he undertook to use his 
best offices to procure it for me. 

"Accordingly about three months ago he took an oppor- 
tunity of making you this request, which he told me you 
desired only to defer till the hurry of your Nunnery cause 
was over. 

"Since the determination of that affair he has put you in 
mind of what you gave me hopes of, but without success ; you 
having (as he tells me) absolutely refused now to hear one 
word of what I have to say. The denying me this piece of 
common right is the hardest measure that a man in my situa- 
tion could receive, and though the whole inconvenience of it 
may be thought to fall, as intended, directly upon me, yet I 
wish, Dr. Sterne, a great part of it may not rebound upon 
yourself. For why, may any one ask, why will you in- 
terest yourself in a complaint against your Nephew if you 
are determined against hearing what he has to say for him- 
self ? — and if you thus deny him every opportunity he seeks 
of doing himself justice ? Is it not too plain you do not wish 
to find him justified, or that you do not care to lose the uses 
of such a handle against him? However it may seem to 
others, the case appearing in this light to me, it has deter- 
mined me, contrary to my former promise 'of giving you no 

further trouble' to add this, which is not to solicit again 

what you have denyed me to the Dean, (for after what I 
have felt from so hard a Treatment, I would not accept of it, 

should the Offer come now from myself.) But my intent 

is by a plain and honest narrative of my Behaviour, and my 



QTJAEREL WITH HIS UNCLE 97 

Mother 's too, to disarm you for the future ; being determined 
since you would not hear me face to face with my accusers, 
that you shall not go unconvinced or at least not uninformed 
of the true state of the Case. 

*At~ «V- -Vr 4it ^P- *V- ^fc 4& 

"From my Father's death to the time I settled in the 
world, which was eleven years, my Mother lived in Ireland, 
and as during all that time I was not in a condition to furnish 
her with money, I seldom heard from her ; and when I did, the 
account I generally had was, that by the help of an Em- 
broidery school that she kept, and by the punctual payment 
of her pension, which is £20 a year, she lived well, and would 
have done so to this hour had not the news that I had married 
a woman of fortune hastened her over to England. 

' ' The very hour I received notice of her landing at Liver- 
pool I took post to prevent her coming nearer me, stayed 
three days with her, used all the arguments I could fairly 
to engage her to return to Ireland, and end her days with 
her own relations. 

"I convinced her that besides the interest of my wife's 
fortune, I had then but a bare hundred pounds a year; out 
of which my ill health obliged me to keep a curate, that we 
had moreover ourselves to keep, and in that sort of decency 
which left it not in our power to give her much; that what 
we could spare she should as certainly receive in Ireland as 
here; that the place she had left was a cheap country — her 
native one, and where she was sensible £20 a year was more 
than equal to thirty here, besides the discount of having her 
pension paid in England where it was not due and the utter 
impossibility I was under of making up so many deficiencies. 

"I concluded with representing to her the inhumanity of 
a Mother able to maintain herself, thus forcing herself as a 
burden upon a Son who was scarce able to support himself 
without breaking in upon the future support of another per- 
son whom she might imagine was much dearer to me. 

"In short I summed up all those arguments with making 
her a present of twenty guineas, which with a present of 
Cloathes etc. which I had given her the day before, I doubted 



98 LAURENCE STERNE 

not would have the effect I wanted. But I was much mistaken, 
for though she heard me with attention, yet as soon as she 
had got the money into her pocket, she told me with an air 
of the utmost insolence 'That as for going back to live in 
Ireland, she was determined to show me no such sport, that 
she had found I had married a wife who had brought me 
a fortune, and she was resolved to enjoy her share of it, and 
live the rest of her days at her ease either at York or Chester. ' 

"I need not swell this letter with all I said upon the 
unreasonableness of such a determination; it is sufficient to 
inform you that, all I did say proving to no purpose, I was 
forced to leave her in her resolution; and notwithstanding 
so much provocation, I took my leave with assuring her ' That 
though my Income was strait I should not forget I was a son, 
though she had forgot she was a mother.' 

"From Liverpool, as she had determined, she went with 
my sister to fix at Chester, where, though she had little just 
grounds for such an expectation, she found me better than my 
word, for we were kind to her above our power, and common 
justice to ourselves; and though it went hard enough down 
with us to reflect we were supporting both her and my sister in 
the pleasures and advantages of a township which for prudent 
reasons we denied ourselves, yet still we were weak enough 
to do it for five years together, though I own not without 
continual remonstrances on my side as well as perpetual 
clamours on theirs, which you will naturally imagine to have 
been the case when all that was given was thought as much 
above reason by the one, as it fell below the Expectations of 
the other. 

1 ' In this situation of things betwixt us, in the year '44 my 
sister was sent from Chester by order of my mother to York, 
that she might make her complaints to you, and engage you 
to second them in these unreasonable claims upon us. 

"This was the intent of her coming, though the pretence 
of her journey (of which I bore the expences) was to make 
a month's visit to me, or rather a month's experiment of my 

further weakness. She stayed her time or longer — was 

received by us with all kindness, was sent back at my own 
charge with my own servant and horses, with five guineas 



QUARREL WITH HIS UNCLE 99 

which I gave her in her pocket, and a six and thirty piece 
which my wife put into her hand as she took horse. 

"In what light she represented so much affection and 
generosity I refer to your memory of the account she gave you 
of it in her return through York. But for very strong 
reasons I believe she concealed from you all that was neces- 
sary to make a proper handle of us both ; which double Game 
by the bye, my Mother has played over again upon us, for 
the same purposes since she came to York, of which you will 
see a proof by and bye. 

' ' But to return to my sister. As we were not able to give 
her a fortune, and were as little able to maintain her as she 
expected — therefore, as the truest mark of our friendship in 
such a situation, my wife and self took no small pains, the 
time she was with us to turn her thoughts to some way of 
depending upon her own industry, in which we offered her 
all imaginable assistance ; first by proposing to her that, if 
she would set herself to learn the business of a Mantuamaker, 
as soon as she could get insight enough into it to make a Gown 
and set up for herself, 'That we would give her £30 to begin 
the world and support her till business fell in; or, if she 
would go into a Milliner's shop in London, my wife engaged 
not only to get her into a shop where she should have £10 
a year wages, but to equip her with cloathes etc. properly for 
the place; or lastly, if she liked it better, as my Wife had 
then an opportunity of recommending her to the family of 
one of the first of our Nobility — she undertook to get her a 
creditable place in it, where she would receive no less than 
eight or ten pounds a year wages with other advantages.' 
My sister showed no seeming opposition to either of the two 
last proposals till my wife had wrote and got a favourable an- 
swer to the one, and an immediate offer of the other. It will 
astonish you, Sir, when I tell you she rejected them with the 
utmost scorn, telling me I might send my own children to 
service when I had any, but for her part, as she was the 
daughter of a gentleman, she would not disgrace herself but 
would live as such. Notwithstanding so absurd an instance 
of her folly, which might have disengaged me from any 
further concern, yet I persisted in doing what I thought was 



100 LAURENCE STERNE 

right; and though after this the tokens of our kindness were 
neither so great nor so frequent as before, yet nevertheless 
we continued sending what we could conveniently spare. 

"It is not usual to take receipts for presents made; so 
that I have not many vouchers of that kind; and [as] my 
Mother has more than once denyed the money I have sent her, 
even to my own face, I have little expectation of such 
acknowledgements as she ought to make. But this I solemnly 
declare upon the nearest computation we can make, that in 
money, cloathes, and other presents we are more than £90 
poorer for what we have given and remitted to them. In one 
of the remittances (which was the summer [of] my sisters 
visit) and which as I remember was a small bill drawn for 
£3 by Mr. Ricord upon Mr. Boldero,* after my Mother had 
got the money in Chester for the bill, she peremptorily denied 
the receipt of it. I naturally supposed some mistake of 

Mr. Ricord in directing However that she might not be a 

sufferer by the disappointment, I immediately sent another 
bill for as much more; but withal said, as Mr. Ricord could 
prove his sending her the Bill, I was determined to trace out 
who had got my money; upon which she wrote word back 
that she had received it herself but had forgot it. You will 
the more readily believe this when I inform you, that in 
December, '47, when my Mother went to your house to com- 
plain she could not get a farthing from me, that she carried 
with her ten guineas in her pocket, which I had given her but 
two days before. If she could forget such a sum, I had 
reason to remember it, for when I gave it I did not leave 
myself one guinea in the house to befriend my wife, though 
then within one day of her labour, and under an apparent 
necessity of a man-midwife to attend her. 

"What uses she made of this ungenerous concealment I 

refer again to yourself But I suppose they were the same 

as in my sister's case, to make a penny of us both. 

"When I gave her this sum, I desired she would go and 
acquaint you with it, and moreover took that occasion to tell 
her I would give her £8 every year whilst I lived. The week 
after she wrote me word she had been with you, and was 

* Arthur Ricord, Sr., and John Boldero, gentlemen of York. 



QUARREL WITH HIS UNCLE 101 

determined not to accept that offer unless I would settle the 
£8 upon her out of my Wife's fortune, and chargeable upon 
it in case my wife should be left a widow. This she added 
was your particular advice, which without better evidence I 
am not yet willing to believe • because, though you do not yet 
know the particulars of my Wife's fortune — you must know 
so much of it, was such an event as my death to happen 
shortly, without such a burden as this upon my widow and 
my child, that Mrs. Sterne would be as much distressed, and 
as undeservedly so as any widow in Great Britain: and 
though I know as well as you and my Mother that I have a 
power in law to lay her open to all the terrors of such a 

melancholy situation that I feel I have no power in equity 

or in conscience to do so ; and I will add in her behalf, con- 
sidering how much she has merited at my hands as the best 
of wives, that was I capable of being worried into so cruel 
a measure as to give away hers, and her child's bread upon 
the clamour which you and my Mother have raised — that I 
should not only be the weakest but the worst man that ever 
woman trusted with all she had. 

"Was I, Sir, to die this night, I have not more than the very 
Income of £20 a year (which my mother enjoys) to divide 
equally betwixt my Wife, a helpless child, and perhaps a 
third unhappy sharer, that might come into the world some 
months after its father's death to claim its part. The false 
modesty of not being able to declare this, has made me thus 
long a prey to my Mother, and to. this clamour raised against 
me ; and since I have made known thus much of my condition 
as an honest man, it becomes me to add, that I think I have 
no right to apply one shilling of my Income to any other 
purpose but that of laying by a provision for my wife and 
child: and that it will be time enough (if then) to add 
somewhat to my Mother's pension of £20 a year when I have 
as much to leave my Wife, who besides the duties I owe her 
of a Husband and the father of a dear child, has this further 
claim: — that she whose bread I am thus defending was the 
person who brought it into the family, and whose birth and 
education would ill enable her to struggle in the world without 



102 LAUEENCE STEENE 

it that the other person who now claims it from her, and 

has raised us so much sorrow upon that score brought not one 

sixpence into the family and though it would give me pain 

enough to report it upon any other occasion, that she was the 
daughter of no other than a poor Suttler who followed the 
camp in Flanders, was neither born nor bred to the expecta- 
tion of a fourth part of that the government allows her ; and 
therefore has reason to be contented with such a provision, 
though double the sum would be nakedness to my wife. 

"I suppose this representation will be a sufficient answer 
to any one who expects no more from a man than what the 
difficulties under which he acts will enable him to perform. 
For those who expect more, I leave them to their expectations, 
and conclude this long and hasty wrote letter, with declaring 
that the relation in which I stand to you inclines me to 
exclude you from the number of the last. For notwithstand- 
ing the hardest measure that ever man received, continued on 
your side without any provocation on mine, without ever once 
being told my fault, or conscious of even committing one 
which deserved an unkind look from you — notwithstanding 
this, and the bitterness of ten years' unwearied persecution, 
that I retain that sense of the service you did me at my first 
setting out in the world, which becomes a man inclined to be 
grateful, and that I am 

"Sir, 
"your once much obliged though now 

"your much injured nephew, 

"Laurence Sterne " 

This "plain and honest narrative", exactly contemporary 
with the incidents described in it, gives the lie direct to the 
epigram of Horace Walpole's, so neatly expressed by Lord 
Byron, who said, with reference to a scene in the Sentimental 
Journey, that Sterne "preferred whining over a dead ass to 
relieving a living mother". It likewise explains the tradi- 
tion, coming from John Croft, that Sterne left his mother to 
die in "the common gaol at York in a wretched condition, or 
soon after she was released".* If she was confined there as a 

* The story was told in its most complete form in a letter to George 
Whatley, treasurer of the London Foundling Hospital, from the 



QUAREEL WITH HIS UNCLE 103 

vagrant, it was by order of Dr. Sterne that he might do his 
nephew, "as a clergyman, the most real disservice " in his 
power. The letter is throughout a vindication of Sterne's 
conduct, so far as there can be any vindication of a son 's break 
with his mother. Whatever else may be said of Sterne he 
was no niggard. He gave his mother and sister freely of his 
income and would have made it an allowance. It was neither 
just nor reasonable to ask him to settle upon them an annuity 
chargeable upon his wife's small estate. No one can have 
any patience with his sister Catherine who refused the chance 
to earn an honest living. His mother was no doubt vulgar, 
turbulent, and untrustworthy, for Dr. Sterne himself, when 
he had no motive to the contrary, spoke of her temper as 
"clamourous and rapacious". And yet, to say the truth, 
Sterne's vindication of himself, taken in the whole, does not 
leave the best impression of his own character. It is difficult 
to think of a son 's casting a slur upon the birth of his mother, 
however humble it may have been. For once Sterne's sense 
of humour, to say the least, deserted him. A man of finer 
grain would have taken in his mother and sister and made 
the best of it. Mrs. Sterne and her daughter, once fixed in 
York under the surveillance of Dr. Sterne, certainly gave 
sufficient occasion for rumours, not wholly without justifica- 
tion, of their neglect by the young Yicar of Sutton. Dr. 
Sterne was thereby able to make the most of the strained 
relations between mother and son, yet to continue a short 
period, for stirring up further enmities and spreading the 
report of them where they would do the most harm. 

Rev. Daniel Watson, Vicar of Leake, near Coxwold, in Sterne's time. 
Under date of January 10, 1776, Watson wrote: 

''Shall I tell you what York scandal says? viz.: that Sterne, when 
possessed of preferment of £300 a year, would not pay £10 to release 
his mother out of Ousebridge prison, when poverty was her only fault, 
and her character so good that two of her neighbours clubbed to set 
her at liberty, to gain a livelihood, as she had been accustomed to do, 
by taking in washing. Yet this was the man whose fine feelings gave 
the world the story of Le Fevre and the Sentimental Journey. Do you 
not feel as if something hurt you more than a cut across your finger 
at reading this? Talking on benevolence, or writing about it, in the 
most pathetic manner, and doing all the good you can without shew 
and parade, are very different things." 

This letter, then m possession of John Towill Eutt, was published 
in The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature for 
January, 1806. 



CHAPTER V 

PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS 

Sterne had not won in the long warfare with his uncle. 
Such at least is the intimation that he wished to convey in 
the sketch of Parson Yorick. "Yorick", he says, "fought it 
out with all imaginable gallantry for some time; till, over- 
powered by numbers, and worn out at length by the calamities 
of the war, — but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which 
it was carried on, — he threw down the sword; and though he 
kept up his spirits in appearance to the last, he died, never- 
theless, as was generally thought, quite brokenhearted." 
Though Sterne did not literally die of a broken heart, he was 
bruised and humbled to the dust. His friends, it is true, had 
stood by him nobly through it all, but they were powerless 
to help him in the way he most needed their help. Known 
as he was among them as a gentleman of means, he could not 
in his pride go to them and "lay open the nakedness" of his 
condition ; to no one except perhaps the dean, could he go 
and say that his wife's fortune was in danger of being con- 
sumed, and that he was scarce able to maintain himself on 
the livings he held. The damp and depressing climate of the 
York valley was working ruin to his delicate constitution, and 
he longed for a parish among the hills ; but that was denied 
him. Like Yorick he was compelled to throw down his sword 
and retire to Sutton to bide his time. During the next few 
years we are to imagine him as still in touch with his friends 
at York and their intrigues, but as entering more completely 
into the occupations and pastimes of a country parson. "If 
you have three or four last Yorks Courants", runs a letter 
written in the midst of parish business, to a friend in the 
city, "pray send one to us, for we are as much strangers to 
all that has pass'd amongst you, as if we were in a mine in 
Siberia." Every summer he drove through the beautiful 

104 



PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS 105 

Yorkshire country to Alne and Pickering and other villages 
within the jurisdiction of his commissaryships, for he per- 
formed, as the records show, his visitations with scrupulous 
regularity. He made friends everywhere. This is the period 
of his friendships, amusements, and farming. He was shuf- 
fling his cards anew for a last deal. 

When Sterne, at the nadir of his fortunes, returned once 
more to his farming, he felt again the gnawing of the old 
land-hunger. He had, to be sure, no more capital to invest 
in land; and not even enough to carry through the projects 
that he was forming; for he conveyed, by lease and release 
dated the fifth and the sixth of April, 1753, his freehold to 
his friends Stephen Croft and Dr. Fountayne.* This con- 
veyance, considering his straitened circumstances, can mean 
only a second mortgage on the Tindall farm. But there are 
sometimes, as Sterne well knew, ways of obtaining land with- 
out purchase. In the eighteenth century, the favourite way 
was an enclosure or deforesting Act. What Sterne, unbiased 
by self-interest, thought of these enclosures, which deprived 
poor parishioners of fuel and pasturage, he has left on record 
in Tristram Shandy. Mr. Walter Shandy, it is there related, 
rode out with his son on a morning "to save if possible a 
beautiful wood, which the dean and chapter were hewing 
down to give to the poor"; that is, says Sterne's footnote, 
"to the poor in spirit, inasmuch as they divided the money 
amongst themselves". But in his own case, none the less 
for this opinion, Sterne could waive all scruples against harm- 
ing the poor of his parish. At that time Sutton formed a 
part of the demesne of Lord Fauconberg of Newburgh Priory. 
Besides being lord of the manor, the earl was also "seized of 
several cottages, frontsteads, lands, and tenements" within 
the township. The second large landowner was the squire, 
Philip Harland, who, in addition to his "divers freehold 
messuages", had inherited from his father a lease of the 
rectory, including the greater tithes. Third in the list came 
Sterne as vicar of the parish and as owner of a "freehold 
messuage" in his own right. The three men, working 
together, easily obtained, through the influence of Lord 

* The conveyance was registered at Northallerton on May 2, 1753. 



106 LAURENCE STERNE 

Fauconberg, an Act of Parliament for enclosing most of those 
lands of Sutton which had long lain common. 

The lands in question consisted, say the Articles of Agree- 
ment* bearing date January 15, 1756, of "six common 
Fields", containing "Thirteen Hundred Acres of Land, or 
upwards, and called or known by the Names of the North- 
field, Enhams, Murton-field, Thorp-field, South-field and 
West-field, * * * also certain common Meadow Grounds 
* * * called White-Car-Ings, Esk, and Sharoms, and also 
certain large and extensive Commons, called Brown Moor, 
Stockhill Sykes, Three Nook piece, Hinderlands, the Woods", 
and other pieces, the names of which were not well known. 
There were three thousand acres altogether. Commissioners, 
duly authorised by the Act, were appointed to make the allot- 
ments within three years after its passage. By the terms of 
the final instrument, which was enrolled in the registry office 
at Northallerton on March 23, 1759, Sterne received in his 
own right, exclusive of what was due to him as vicar of the 
parish, six parcels of land, comprising full sixty acres, with 
the buildings thereon. Sterne came out of the transaction 
as well as if he had been one of the commissioners himself. 
All of his allotments, as finally arranged, were close together 
in the North-field on the north side of the road through the 
village, not far from the rectory and, it would seem, near the 
Tindall farm, of which he had long been the owner. For 
Sterne's benefit Philip Harland exchanged with him three 
closes in the North-field for a more distant allotment; and 
Lord Fauconberg most generously resigned all right and title 
to two tenements separated from the parsonage only by the 
church and churchyard. By the favours of his friends, 
Sterne was thus lifted into a small country squire who culti- 
vated his lands and had cottages for his labourers. In the 
meantime he was growing, in rivalry to the squire, huge 
crops of wheat, barley, oats and potatoes, bringing under the 
plough new fields that had been used hitherto for pasturage. 

As a relief to farming and the cure of souls, Sterne 
enjoyed many hours and days of careless relaxation. Com- 

* The Articles of Agreement are recited in the preamble to the 
Sutton Enclosure Act.' — Private Acts of Parliament, 29 George II, c. 10. 



PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS 107 

mon interest had brought together the parson and the squire 
on a better footing than formerly, though they may never 
have quite understood each other. It was but a few steps 
for either across the road for a chat over their crops and 
cattle. Between Sterne and the Crofts, nothing ever occurred 
to ruffle their friendship. The parson and his wife were ever 
familiar guests at Stillington Hall on an evening for supper 
and for jests and story-telling by the fireside. At this period, 
too, the Sternes were beginning to drive over to Newburgh 
Priory for dinners, choice wines, and Lady Catherine's parties 
at quadrille, a fashionable game of cards which had displaced 
the royal ombre of Pope's day. Earlier we caught just a 
glimpse of Sterne skating over the marshes of Stillington 
Common, and shooting partridges on a Sunday afternoon, 
while his congregation was already seated in church waiting 
for his appearance after the slaughter should be over. To 
these old-time amusements he now added painting. 

That Sterne was a painter before he wrote Tristram 
Shandy, must have been surmised by every reader of the 
book; for he therein employs so easily the technical terms of 
the art for running up parallels on the mechanics of literary 
expression, or for describing the poise and movement of his 
characters — whether it be Corporal Trim standing in the 
kitchen, hat in hand, as he announces to Susannah and the 
scullions that "Bobby is dead and buried", or it be Mrs. 
Shandy listening at a keyhole to the conversation of her hus- 
band and my uncle Toby, in the attitude of "the Listening 
Slave with the Goddess of Silence at his back". On his 
famous mock dedication to any duke, marquis., or earl in his 
Majesty's dominions who may have fifty pounds to pay for 
it, Sterne remarks: "The design, your Lordship sees, is good, 

the colouring transparent, the drawing not amiss ; 

or to speak more like a man of science, and measure my 

piece in the painter's scale, divided into 20, 1 believe, my 

Lord, the outlines will turn out as 12, — the composition as 9, — 
the colouring as 6, — the expression 13 and a half, — and the 
design — if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand my own 
design, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to be 
as 20, 1 think it cannot well fall short of 19. Besides all 



108 LAURENCE STERNE 

this, there is keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the 

Hobby-Horse, (which is a secondary figure, and a kind of 
back-ground to the whole) give great force to the principal 
lights in your own figure, and make it come off wonderfully ; 

and besides, there is an air of originality in the tout 

ensemble." Some pages onward Sterne tells us that "good 
jolly noses" in "well proportioned faces, should comprehend 
a full third — that is, measured downwards from the setting 
on of the hair". He has a hit by the way at "the honourable 
devices which the Pentagraphic Brethren of the brush have 
shewn in taking copies". Their mechanical methods, he 
avers, have been stolen by "the great historians", who insist 
upon drawing full-length portraits "against the light": a 
method, it may be added, that "is illiberal, — dishonest, — and 
hard upon the character of the man who sits". He was out 
of patience with the cant about "the colouring of Titian, the 
expression of Rubens, the grace of Raphael, * * * the cor- 
regiescity of Corregio, * * * or the grand contour of An- 
gelo". Sterne nevertheless appreciated from afar the early 
masters and made a fine paragraph upon them in reference 
to the dash and the sudden silence of the author that comes 
with it at the moment the reader would have him go on : 

' ' Just Heaven ! how does the Toco piu and the Poco meno 
of the Italian artists; the insensible more or less, deter- 
mine the precise line of beauty in the sentence, as well as in 
the statue ! How do the slight touches of the chisel, the pencil, 
the pen, the fiddle-stick, et caetera, — give the true swell, which 

gives the true pleasure ! my countrymen ! — be nice ; — be 

cautious of your language ; — and never, ! never let it be 
forgotten upon what small particles your eloquence and your 
fame depend." 

The amateur's first ideal was Hogarth, who could convey 
to the mind as much by three lines as others by three hun- 
dred. The Analysis of Beauty, out in 1753, Sterne recom- 
mended to his readers and, more to the point, carried over 
into Tristram Shandy its opinions and phrasing for praise 
and banter. He was particularly struck by Hogarth's 
pyramid and dark serpentine line on one of its faces, an 
ornament to the title-page, and by what was said of them 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSIIIPS 109 

thereafter as the beginning and end of all harmony, grace, 
and beauty. Beyond doubt Sterne had in mind Hogarth's 
distinction between the statue with its stiff lines and the 
living man who may conform to the line of beauty, when he 
placed Corporal Trim, with sermon in hand, before Dr. Slop 
and the Shandys: 

"He stood, for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in 

at one view, with his body swayed, and somewhat bent for- 
wards, his right leg from under him, sustaining seven- 
eighths of his whole weight, the foot of his left leg, the de- 
fect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a 

little, not laterally, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt 

them ; — his knee bent, but that not violently, — but so as to fall 
within the limits of the line of beauty ; — and I add, of the line 
of science too ; — for consider, it had one eighth part of his body 
to bear up ; — so that in this case the position of the leg is 
determined,- — because the foot could be no farther advanced, 
or the knee more bent, than what would allow him, mechanic- 
ally to receive an eighth part of his whole weight under it, 
and to carry it too. 

"This I recommend to painters: need I add, to 

orators? 1 think not; for unless they practise it, 

they must fall upon their noses. ' ' 

Sterne's humour for painting, when he became tired of 
shooting partridges, greatly puzzled his parishioners. From 
their point of view, wrote John Croft thirty years after: 
"They generally considered him as crazy or crackbrained. 
At one time he wou'd take up the Gun and follow shooting 
till he became a good shott, then he wou'd take up the Pencil 
and paint Pictures. He chiefly copied Portraits. He had a 
good Idea of Drawing, but not the least of mixing his colours. 
There are sever all Pictures of his painting at York, such as 
they are. ' ' Among these portraits, most of which have disap- 
peared, was a caricature of Mrs. Sterne, signed "Pigrich 
f [ecit] "; "in character of execution very like", said one who 
saw it, "to Hogarth's Politician".* Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
who came across the sketch in the upper rooms of a bookseller 
at Old Boston, thought it the oddest thing in a "treasury 

* Notes and Queries, third series, VII, 53. 



w 



HO LAUEENCE STERNE 

of antiquities and curiosities ". " There was", he said in 
bringing- his catalogue to a close "a crayon-portrait of 
Sterne's wife, looking so haughty and unamiable, that the 
wonder is, not that he ultimately left her, but how he ever 
contrived to live a week with such an awful woman."* This 
Hogarthian caricature was afterwards engraved for Paul 
Stapfer's Laurence Sterne, but en second thought it was 
suppressed. 

By driving into York Sterne might pass an afternoon any 
day with a congenial fellow-craftsman, a certain Thomas 
Bridges, who was a dry wit like himself. Each painted the 
other on the same canvas — Sterne as clown and Bridges as 
quack-doctor, standing upon a platform and humbugging a 
crowd at a fair. Bridges holds in his outstretched right 
hand a phial of his tincture, between thumb and forefinger, 
while gravely lauding its virtues as a panacea. Sterne, a 
youthful face in skull cap and ruff, hat in hand, seems ready 
to break into a jest at the expense of his serious companion. 
A medicine chest lies open between them; and in the back- 
ground is a pretty street scene at York, terminating in the 
spire of one of the churches. "When last heard of, this double 
caricature was owned by Dr. James Atkinson (1759-1839), a 
York surgeon and bibliographer. He received it from his 
father, who was a friend of Sterne. Dr. Atkinson showed the 
portrait to Thomas Frognall Dibdin when at York in 1820, 
and permitted him to have it engraved for his Bibliographical 
Tour, whence it has come down to us in a good plate. Dibdin 
described the original as "a coarse production in oil" and 
yet "a most singular original picture'"' '.* 

For a year or more Sterne had the rare good fortune of 
associating with Christopher Steele and his apprentice George 
Romney, who set up their joint studio at York in the autumn 
of 1756. Steele made a portrait of Sterne, and Romney after- 
wards "painted several scenes from Tristram Shandy' 1 , 
among which one had as subject Dr. Slop's arrival at Shandy 
Hall, bespattered with mud — a caricature, it is thought, of 

* "Pilgrim to Old Boston" in Our Old Home. 

* Bibliographical, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour in the Northern 
Counties of England and Scotland, I, 213 (London, 1838). 



PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS m 

Dr. Burton himself, whom Eomney likely knew. These, said 
Eichard Cumberland, were raffled off by Eomney for what he 
could get for them in his days of poverty.* The Dr. Slop, 
it is certain, was so disposed of at Kendal. No further details 
of the comradeship are surely known, though tradition has it 
that Sterne liked Eomney better than Steele, and would have 
sat to him but for offending the elder colleague. Perhaps 
Sterne studied with them, for he learned from some source 
a new manner. Caricature in imitation of Hogarth, he con- 
tinued to practise, it is true, down to the end of his life. 
A jolly tail-piece — two cocks fighting — to a pamphlet of 1759 
is likely Sterne's; and for the amusement of his friends, he 
illustrated a copy of the Sentimental Journey. But along 
with sketches of this kind, he tried his hand at ideal por- 
traits in sylvan background, a few of which, though of later 
date, seem to have survived. While at Eome in 1766, Sterne 
apparently met Michael Wodhull of Thenford, the translator 
of Euripides, who was preparing for the press a collection of 
original poems, some of which had been issued as pamphlets. 
When the volume appeared in 1772, it contained three illus- 
trations (not in the pamphlets) bearing on the left corner 
the name of ' ' L. Stern del Eomae ' ', and on the right the name 
of I. A. Faldoni, evidently a misprint for G. A. Faldoni, a 
well-known engraver of the period. Over these designs of 
"L. Stern' ' hangs a mystery that has never been cleared up. 
It is just possible that they were made by a name-sake of 
Sterne's — one Lewis Stern (1708-77), who is said to have 
painted "game and other birds, flowers, fruit, and scriptural 
subjects in admirable style ".f On the other hand, they were 
attributed to Laurence Sterne, without question, in the first 
collected edition of his works, brought out by his original 
publishers in 1780. If the curious designs are Sterne 's, 
they show the humour of the author who did not care to 
illustrate his own works for the public, but was quite willing 
to aid a friend. One of them represents a dryad reclining by 
a sedgy stream and gazing upon an Arcadian landscape. 
Another, adorning an ode to the Muses, has Pegasus in the 

* European Magazine, June, 1803. 

t Notes and Queries, third series, VII, 53. 



112 LAUEENCE STEENE 

foreground before the spring Hippocrene, which has just 
gushed from the solid rock in abundant streams, under the 
blow of his hoof, still uplifted ; and above rises Mount Heli- 
con, thickly wooded up to the temple of the Muses, whither 
travellers are climbing their way. Much in the same style 
is the third sketch for a stanza or two in an ode to Miss Sarah 
Fowler, the loveliest of all maids in the train of the Graces. 
Poesy stands erect, with lyre resting on her left arm, by a 
glassy pool that reflects her beauty; and above her head, 
encircled with a myrtle wreath, hover a group of cupids. 
With face turned towards Poesy, a deep-breasted nymph — 
is it Miss Sarah Fowler ? — reclines on an urn, from the mouth 
of which she is pouring a libation of crystal waters into the 
stream beneath. 

During these years of painting when Sterne frequently 
went into York for a day with Bridges or Steele and Romney, 
he formed a close friendship with "the Rev. Mr. Blake", a 
brother of the cloth with whom he had long been acquainted. 
The clergyman in question, never yet identified, was beyond 
doubt the Reverend John Blake, a son of Zachary Blake, 
rector of Goldsborough and master of the Royal Grammar 
School in the Horse Fair near York. Ten years younger 
than Sterne, John Blake graduated from Christ Church, 
Oxford, Bachelor of Arts in 1743, and Master of Arts in 1746. 
While still a student at Oxford, he was ordained deacon by 
the Archbishop of York on June 9, 1745; and priest on 
June 14, 1747. His long residence at the university indicates 
that he was preparing himself for the instruction of youth. 
But in the meantime he served curacies at Wigginton, a small 
parish on the road midway between York and Sutton, and at 
St. Saviour 's, an ancient church within the city. On Decem- 
ber 2, 1756, he was collated by the Archbishop of York to the 
living of Catton, on the river Derwent, a few miles above 
Elvington, the seat of Sterne's ancestors. His father becom- 
ing superannuated by this time, he succeeded him in the 
Royal Grammar School, under license of the dean and chap- 
ter, on May 13, 1757.* Blake was not only a scholar fully 

* With the exception of his election to the grammar school, all of 
Blake's ecclesiastical appointments, including his admission to holy 
orders, are recorded in the Institutions of the York Diocese. 



PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS 113 

equipped for his post; he was also an active citizen whose 
name appears at intervals in the York Courant, as manager 
of the charity schools and contributor to the county hospital. 

Through the summer and autumn of 1758, Sterne and 
Blake were engaged in a brisk correspondence, which was car- 
ried on by special messengers between York and Sutton. At 
that time the young master of the grammar school was in sore 
distress over the miscarriage of proposals for the hand of a 
"Miss Ash", a small heiress, living across the street with her 
widowed mother. The woman whom he wished to marry was 
perhaps Margaret, daughter of Elizabeth Ash, widow, who is 
described in her will as residing in the parish of St. John's, 
Micklegate, and possessing an estate at Tollerton. Sterne, 
who was called in for advice about the marriage settlement, 
warned his friend against a crafty grandmother, and an un- 
scrupulous lawyer and justice of the peace, one John Stan- 
hope, who was trying to enter the case, "The whole 
appears", wrote Sterne, remembering his Kabelais, "what I 
but too shrewdly suspected, a contexture of plots against 
your fortune and person, grand mama standing first in the 
dramatis personae, the Loup Garou, or raw head and bloody 
bones, to frighten Master Jacky into silence, and make him go 

to bed with Missy, supperless and in peace Stanhope, the 

lawyer, behind the scenes, ready to be call'd in to do his part, 
either to frighten or outwit you, in case the terror of grand 
mama should not do the business without him. Miss's part 
was to play them off upon your good nature in their turns, 
and give proper reports how the plot wrought. But more of 
this allegory another time. In the meanwhile, our stedfast 
council and opinion is, to treat with Stanhope upon no 
terms either in person or proxy. * * * Keep clear of him 
by all means, and for this additional reason, namely, that 
was he call'd in either at first or last, you lose the advantage 
as well as opportunity of an honorable retreat which is in 
your power the moment they reject your proposals, but will 
never be so again after you refer to him. ' ' Sterne 's guiding 
hand seemed at times to be bringing the affair to a happy 
conclusion, but in the end he was unable to cope with the 
strategy of the astute lawyer; for Blake did not marry his 

8 



114 LAUEENCE STEENE 

"Miss Ash"; and the Margaret Ash, with whom we have 
identified her, became the wife of William Clark of Good- 
manham, Yorkshire, where, according to the will of her 
mother,* which was drawn by Stanhope, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Ash held the right of presentation to the parish church and 
rectory. 

"Mrs. Ash and Miss" were much annoyed, there are 
reasons for thinking, by the interference of the Vicar of Sut- 
ton. When Blake came out to Sutton to dine and confer 
with Sterne, it was his custom to make a secret of it to "the 
ladies over the way"; and when Sterne, obedient to his 
friend's "whistle", hurried off to York, he sometimes chose 
the evening, that he might not be discovered by those whom 
he would not fall in with for "fifty pounds". There were 
harmless secrets, too, which the vicar wished to keep from 
Mrs. Sterne. "I tore off", runs an exquisite passage in a 
letter to Blake, "I tore off the bottom of yours before I let 
my wife see it, to save a Lye. However, she has since 
observed the curtailment, and seem'd very desirous of know- 
ing what it contain 'd — which I conceal, and only said 'twas 
something that no way concerned her or me; so say the same 
if she interrogates. ' ' Tell a lie to save a lie is a saying that 
would have done honour to Lord Bacon. The philosopher's 
tell a lie to find a troth lacks the colour as well as the humour 
of the clergyman's mandate to his brother in the cure of souls. 

Eventually Sterne found it inconvenient to have Blake's 
letters lying about the rectory, and so he burned them one by 
one as they arrived and were read. On the other hand, Blake 
preserved those he received from Sterne. Forty years ago 
they were owned by Mr. A. H. Hudson of York, who remem- 
bers them "as very long, written upon foolscap, and very 
amusing". From him they passed into a private collection, 
and thence to a dealer who disposed of them singly. Incom- 
plete, mutilated, and out of chronological order, they were 
published by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald in his memoir of Sterne. 

Despite their incompleteness, these letters to Blake are 
quite sufficient to let us into what Sterne was doing near the 

* The will of Mrs. Elizabeth Ash was proved in the Prerogative 
Court of York, Jan. 22, 1774. 



PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS 115 

close of his residence at Sutton. Extracts from them have 
already been quoted for Sterne's ventures in farming. The 
life of a rural parson, one may see, was fast becoming irksome 
to him. Though the year brought large returns in oats and 
barley, the harvesting and threshing of his grain, which at 
one time seemed in danger of sprouting, kept him at home 
away from his friends at York. Once or twice he complained 
of bad roads and bad weather, of which he stood in mortal 
terror, for the damps of the York valley brought on his cough 
and asthma. One rainy night it was ten o'clock before the 
vicar and his wife reached Sutton after a visit to York 
" owing to vile accidents to which Journiers are exposed". 

Again on a morning when they were ready to take a wheel 
into the city to be with their friend on his birthday, they 
were prevented by a terrible downpour. So in the afternoon 
Sterne sent into York his "sinful Amen" — the facetious 
name for his clerk — to tell Blake how the matter stood 
and to say that he was considering the affair with Miss Ash 
"in all its shapes and circumstances". We really would 
have come in person, said Sterne, if we could. "We have 
waited dress 'd and ready to set out ever since nine this 
morning, in hopes to snatch any Intermission of one of the 
most heavy rains I ever knew, — but we are destined not to 

go, for the day, grows worse and worse upon our hands, 

and the sky gathering in on all sides leaves no Prospect of any 
but a most dismal going and coming, and not without danger, 

as the roads are full of Water What remains, but that we 

undress ourselves and wish you absent, what we would most 

gladly have wish'd you present- all Happiness and many 

fair and less ominous Birth Days, than our prospect affords 
us." "I wish to God", to combine other letters, "you could 
some day ride out next week, and breakfast and dine with us. 
* * * However, I will come over at your desire, but it cannot 
•be tomorrow, because all hands are to be employed in cutting 
my barley, which is now shaking with this vile wind how- 
ever, the next day (Friday) I will be with you by twelve and 
eat a portion of your own dinner and confer till three o'clock, 
in case the day is fair, if not the day after, &c, &c." 

To free himself from local entanglements, Sterne was 



116 LAUEENCE STEENE 

planning to lease his lands and tithes, in the expectation of 
peace and happiness for the next year and ever after. But 
that was not yet. His affairs, he complained, had been 
thrown into utter confusion by a parliamentary election that 
took place in the autumn of 1758. To add to Sterne's worries, 
the health of his daughter Lydia, now eleven years old, was 
causing him great anxiety. On rising one morning with the 
intention of an early start for York, he found Lydia so far 
relapsing that he sent a messenger instead with "two gooses" 
to say that he must ' ' stay and wait till the afternoon to see if 
my poor girl can be left. She is very much out of all sorts; 
and our operator here, though a very penetrating man, seems 
puzzled about her case. If something favourable does not 
turn out to-day about her case, I will send for Dealtry", 
that is, Dr. John Dealtry, a Whig physician at York. His 
own health, too, was fast breaking under the strain. 

Sterne nevertheless managed to ride into York every week 
or two except in the harvest season. He took his own turn 
in the cathedral on the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, 
coming in early for breakfast with Blake ; and he was again 
forced out of his "shell in Xmas week to preach Innocents" 
in place of Thomas Hurdis, Prebendary of Strensall. The 
sermon on the latter occasion seems to have been the one 
entitled The Character of Herod, as published in the usual 
collections. Sterne set out with "Rachel weeping for her 
children", but soon broke from his text and the scant Biblical 
narrative for a portrait of Herod on the lines of Josephus. 
Herod's complicated character — his generosity and munifi- 
cence and cruelty — was "summed up in three words — That 
he was a man of unbounded ambition, who stuck at nothing 
to gratify it". The preacher closed with a story to the point 
out of Plutarch, followed by a wish that God in his mercy 
might "defend mankind from future experiments" in the 
slaughter of innocent people. 

When Mrs. Sterne accompanied her husband into York 
for a day with their friends or "to make her last marketings 
for the year", one or both of them would dine with Thomas 
Bridges and his wife, or at the house of the Rev. Charles 
Cowper, Prebendary of Riccall. Sterne rather preferred to 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSHIPS H7 

leave his wife with Mrs. Cowper on an afternoon, and to go 
by himself to the concert at the Assembly Rooms, not only 
for the music but for a chat with Marmaduke Fothergill the 
younger, or other friends that he was likely to fall in with 
there. In the round of visits he took in Dr. Fountayne, if 
the dean were in town, Jack Taylor, Mr. Blake, and "my 
poor mother", whose "affair", says a letter, "is by this time 
ended, to our comfort, and, I trust, hers". After a long 
period of misunderstanding and estrangement, a reconcilia- 
tion between mother and son had evidently been brought 
about by her acceptance of the allowance that was offered 
to her many years before. Blake, it would seem, from 
a dark hint or two, had acted as mediator. For some 
purpose, at any rate, he was doling out money at York and 
sending accounts of it over to Sutton. If Sterne had time, 
it was his custom, though the letters say nothing about it, to 
stroll into the coffee-room of the George, a fine old hostelry 
in Coney Street, "where those who drank little wine and did 
not choose too much expence, might read the newspapers". 
To those who liked to sit there and gossip, he was well known 
for "a number of pleasant repartees", one of which has 
survived. The general drift of the story is probably true, 
for Sterne let it pass and Hall- Stevenson repeated an 
abridgement of it in the memoir of his friend. 

"There was", according to the more elaborate version of 
the newspapers,* "a troop of horse in the town, and a gay 
young fellow, spoiled by the free education of the world, but 
with no real harm in him, was one of the officers. This gay 
boy, who loved all freedom in discourse, therefore hated a 
parson. Poor Yorick was obliged to hear healths he did not 
like; and would only shuffle about, or pretend deafness; but 
the hour was come, when these pretences were to pass no 
longer. The captain was in the middle of a Covent-garden 
story, loud, indecent, and profane in his expressions; when 
poor Yorick entered, he stopped on a sudden, and began, with 
all possible contempt and ill usage, to abuse the clergy, fixing 
his eye on Yorick, and pointing to him as an example on 
every occasion. Yorick pretended, as long as he could with 
* For example, The London Chronicle, May 3-6, 1760. 



118 LAUEENCE STEENE 

any decency, not to hear his rudeness ; but when that became 
impossible, he walked up and gravely said to him: 'Sir, I'll 
tell you a story. My father is an officer; and he's so brave 
himself, that he is fond of everything else that's brave, even 
to his dog; you must know we have at this time one of the 
finest creatures in the world, of this kind ; he is the hand- 
somest dog you ever saw, the most spirited in the world, and 
yet the best natured that can be imagined; so lively, that he 
charms everybody ; but he has a cursed trick that spoils all ; 

he never sees a clergyman, but he instantly flies at him.' 

' Pray how long has he had that trick ? ' says the captain. 

'Sir,' replies Yorick, 'ever since he was a Puppy.' ' "The 
young man", adds Hall-Stevenson, "felt the keenness of the 
satire, turned upon his heel, and left Sterne in triumph. ' ' 

II 

Whenever Sterne felt the need of more complete relaxa- 
tion than was afforded by York and the neighbouring squires, 
he had but to take a trip to Scarborough, or to drive over to 
Skelton for a week or a fortnight with his friend John Hall- 
Stevenson. On these excursions his wife never went with 
him. Sterne and Hall- Stevenson, when we last saw them 
together, were reading Rabelais under the great walnut tree 
at Jesus College. John Hall — his friend always dropped the 
Stevenson — was a son of Joseph Hall of Durham by Catha- 
rine, sister and heir to Lawson Trotter of Skelton Castle. 
After trifling away three or four years at Cambridge, the 
young man left the university without a degree, and made the 
usual tour of France and Italy. Returning home towards 
1740, he married in that year Anne, daughter of Ambrose 
Stevenson, Esq., of the Manor House in the parish of Lan- 
chester, Durham, and assumed his wife's surname along with 
his own. In after times he regarded the act as " premature ' ', 
for his wife's property fell short of his expectations. But 
as if to make amends for his own want of foresight, his 
mother died a few months after his marriage; and his uncle, 
Lawson Trotter, "a noted Jacobite", was soon driven from 
the country for the part he took in the insurrection of 1745. 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSHIPS 119 

Skelton thus passed by right of his mother to Hall-Stevenson 
as the eldest son, then barely twenty-eight years old. While 
Sterne was wielding a pen for the House of Hanover, Hall- 
Stevenson was brandishing a sword. After the battle of 
Preston Pans, he formed the neighbouring bucks into a com- 
pany of horsemen under General Oglethorpe, who was back 
from Georgia. They were all finely mounted, wrote a York 
merchant of the time, "with every man a horse and some 
two", and they acted as "a flying squadron, to harass the 
enemy on their march and to give intelligence". "They 
make more noise here", it is significantly added, "than they 
deserve, their number being much magnified."* The event- 
ful period over, Hall- Stevenson settled at Skelton, where he 
continued to the end of his days in the easy, self-indulgent 
life which he had begun at Cambridge, complaining now and 
then of his scant fortune and of a mortgage of £2000 on his 
estate to a younger brother. 

Hall-Stevenson possessed "a fine library", rich in old 
tomes running back into the sixteenth century, among which 
he sat and read on dull days and long winter evenings, now 
and then scribbling a political satire, or loose verse-tale in 
imitation of La Fontaine and other French fabulists, which 
were issued in the form of anonymous pamphlets with notes 
and quotations from Homer, Vergil, and Lucian. There was 
commonly a facetious dedication to himself, as the man he 
most respected, to the vacant reader, or to the macaronies of 
Medmenham Abbey and Pall Mall. The author made no 
claim to finished verse, writing, he said, like Grisset, only 
to save himself from ennui. Horace Walpole discovered "a 
vast deal of original humour and wit" in Mr. Hall's verses; 
but to Gray they "seemed to be absolute madness". Here 
and there they contain clever phrases, as in the opening lines 

* ' ' Letter of Stephen Thompson, a merchant, to Vice-Admiral 
[Henry] Medley" in Eeport on Manuscripts of Lady du Cane presented 
to Parliament by Command of his Majesty, 77-78 (London, 1905). 
A fine account of Hall-Stevenson is given by J. W. Ord, History and 
Antiquities of Cleveland (London, 1846). See also Surtees, Durham, 
II, 291-92; Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, III, 86-88; Alexander Carlyle, 
Autobiography, 453-54 (Edinburgh, 1860) ; and Paver, Supplement to 
Consolidated Yorkshire Visitations (British Museum, Additional MS 
29651). 



120 LAUKENCE STEKNE 

of a reply to a savage attack by Smollett in the Critical 

Review : 

"Ye judging Caledonian Pedlars, 
That to a scribbling World give Law 
Laid up engarretted, like Medlars, 
Eipening asperity in Straw." 

In his humour, Hall- Stevenson renamed his seat Crazy 
Castle. It was a rambling pile of stone rising in a series of 
moss-covered terraces from a stagnant and melancholy moat, 
the abode of frogs and water-rats, and lying on the slope 
of a wooded ravine, two miles and a half inland from Salt- 
burn-by-the-Sea. At one time, its master planned extensive 
restorations, but Sterne dissuaded him from them, saying, in 
remembrance of his own repairs at Sutton, that "the sweet 
visions of architraves, friezes and pedaments" were but the 
bait of the devil to lead one on into cares, curses and debts. 
Better follow, he admonished his friend, the advice of St. Paul 
to his disciples, that they should ' ' sell both coat and waistcoat 
and go rather without shirt or sword, than leave no money 
in their scrip to go to Jerusalem with", that is, to London or 
Paris or any place where congregate fashion and pleasure. 
For the amusement of his friends and Lawson Trotter, who 
was travelling abroad, Hall-Stevenson made a sketch of the 
castle, or had it made, as a frontispiece to a volume of Crazy 
Tales, which opened with a facetious verse-description of 
some of the details. Midway in the description, the verses 
hobble on — 

"A turrit also you may note, 

Its glory vanish 'd like a dream, 

Transform 'd into a pigeon-coat, 

Nodding beside the sleepy stream. 

"Over the Castle hangs a tow'r, 
Threatening destruction ev'ry hour, 
Where owls, and bats, and the jackdaw, 
Their Vespers and their Sabbath keep, 
All night scream horribly, and caw, 
And snore all day, in horrid sleep. 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSHIPS 121 

' ' Oft at the quarrels and the noise 
Of scolding maids or idle boys ; 
Myriads of rooks rise up and fly, 
Like Legions of damn'd souls, 

As black as coals, 
That foul and darken all the sky." 

A very handsome and agreeable young man, Hall- 
Stevenson was thoroughly liked by friends and chance- 
acquaintance, for whom "he kept a full-spread board and 
wore down the steps of his cellar ". Alexander Carlyle, the 
Scotch divine, who crossed his path at the Dragon Inn, 
Harrogate, thought him "a highly accomplished and well- 
bred gentleman", and was drawn to him by a "mild and 
courteous manner". Mrs. Sterne, who saw him occasionally 
for a day at Sutton, had some misgivings about her husband's 
intimacy with him; but she readily admitted that he was 
"a fellow of wit, though humorous; a funny, jolly soul, 
though somewhat splenetic; and (bating the love of women) 
as honest as gold". It is a little strange at first sight that 
Sterne should have made out of him Eugenius, the discreet 
adviser of Yorick, for Hall-Stevenson was anything but 
discreet. And yet he was a man of the world who knew how 
to still a quarrel and keep his friends all good-natured 
towards one another. In spite of his idleness, he carried 
away from Cambridge a knowledge of the classics sufficient 
to quote from them freely, and from his travels on the Con- 
tinent was brought back an interest in French and Italian 
literature. As in the case of Sterne, Locke's Essay on the 
Human Understanding was a book never to be forgotten. 

Except for trips to London and the northern watering- 
places to meet friends, Hall-Stevenson shut himself up in 
Crazy Castle, where an inactive life brought on rheumatism 
and various disorders of the digestion, which were aggravated 
rather than helped by a free use of current nostrums. Some 
years of this treatment, attended with painful results, and 
he developed into a humorous hypochondriac of the family 
one may read of in Peregrine Pickle or Humphry Clinker. 
It was his whim to lay all his ailments to the damps of 



122 LAURENCE STERNE 

Yorkshire, especially to the cold and raw northeast wind, 
which was with him a synonym for death. His sleeping 
room, it is said, was in sight of the weather-cock — the cock 
was an arrow — over the old clock-tower shown in his drawing 
of the castle. On rising in the morning, the master looked 
first toward the arrow to see what the weather was to be; 
and if it pointed towards the northeast, he went back to bed, 
drew the curtains, and imagined himself in extremis. Sterne, 
who frequently bantered Hall- Stevenson on his nerves and 
the weather, in his letters as well as in Tristram Shandy and 
the Sentimental Journey, attempted a cure while on a visit 
to Crazy Castle. On a night, says the tale, he climbed the 
clock-tower, or engaged a boy to do so, and tied down the 
weather-cock in a westerly direction. After that all went 
well for some days until the cord broke and the arrow shot 
round to the northeast. Hall- Stevenson then took to his bed 
and Sterne went home. 

The master of Skelton formed his merry Yorkshire friends 
into a convivial club, called the Demoniacs, in imitation of 
the Rabelaisian Monks of Medmenham Abbey, who were then 
creating great scandal in southern England. Medmenham 
Abbey was an ancient Cistercian monastery, beautifully 
situated, "by hanging woods and soft meadows", on the 
Thames, between Great Marlow and Henley. In this retired 
place, where once dwelt the old monks, a new and profane 
order was established by Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards 
Baron Le Despenser, Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, etc., — a man seldom sober. 
With him were associated John Wilkes the politician, Paul 
Whitehead the poet, Sir William Stanhope, Lord Melcombe 
Regis, the Earl of Sandwich, and "other hands of the first 
water" up to twelve — the number of the Apostles. They 
called themselves Franciscans after their founder. Paul 
Whitehead, their secretary and steward, was known as St. 
Paul. Besides the first twelve, there was a lower order of 
twelve, who acted as servants to their superiors. Over the 
grand entrance was written for all who entered, Fay ce que 
vouldras, which was also the famous inscription on Rabelais 's 
Abbey of Theleme. Every summer and at other favourable 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSHIPS 123 

times, the Monks retired to their abbey for the worship of 
Satan and the Paphian Aphrodite in parody of the rites of 
the Church of Kome. On one occasion, it was a current 
story, when they were in the height of their mirth, invoking 
his Satanic majesty to come among them in person, Wilkes 
let loose a baboon decked in the conventional insignia of the 
devil. The consternation that followed, says the chronicler, 
was simply indescribable. The revellers were terrified nearly 
out of their senses, for they thought that the devil had really 
heeded their summons. The baboon, as frightened as they, 
leaped upon the shoulders of Lord Sandwich, who was cele- 
brating the messe noire; whereupon the wicked nobleman fell 
upon his face, imploring first the devil and then heaven to 
have mercy upon his miserable soul. Soon after this incident, 
which could not be kept secret, the society was disbanded.* 

The direct connection between this abandoned brotherhood 
and the Demoniacs who gathered under the roof of Crazy 
Castle is undeniable. Hall-Stevenson and Sterne afterwards 
numbered Wilkes, Dashwood, and other of the Monks among 
their intimate London friends. Hall-Stevenson may have 
visited Medmenham, and Dashwood, with little doubt, some- 
times came down to Skelton, where he was known as "the 
Privy Counsellor". Sterne when away addressed the com- 
pany at Skelton as "the household of faith" and sent them, 
in parody of the words of St. Paul, the apostolic benediction. 
In justice, however, to the Demoniacs, it must be said at once 
that they could have been only a faint reflection of the Monks 
of Medmenham. They were a company of noisy Yorkshire 
squires and parsons who assembled at Skelton for out-of-door 
sports during the day and for drinking and jesting through 
the night. To quote their host: 

"Some fell to fiddling, some to fluting, 
Some to shooting, some to fishing 
Others to pishing and disputing. ' ' 

*For Medmenham Abbey, see Charles Johnstone, Chrysal, or the 
History of a Guinea, vol. Ill, bk. II, chs. XVII-XXIV (London, 1760- 
65) ; Letters to and from Mr. Wilkes, I, 34-50 (London, 1769) ; and 
G. Lipscomb, History of Buckinghamshire, III, 615-16 (London, 1847). 



124 LAUEENCE STERNE 

As at Medmenham, every one was expected to follow his 
own inclinations, doing whatsoever he pleased. ' ' Why should 
a man", to paraphrase Rabelais, the originator of the idea, 
"bring his life into subjection to rules and the hours? Why 
shonld he not give full rein to will and instinct ? — eat, drink, 
sleep, or perhaps labour, because nature draws him that way 
and not because custom calls or the bell rings?" Among 
the Demoniacs, Hall-Stevenson was known as Antony, prob- 
ably because he was at the same time a recluse, and yet in the 
prime essential wholly unlike the saint whose name he bore. 
Disliking field sports, he kept much within doors. But when 
Sterne came over, squire and parson made excursions together 

to Guisborough for sentimental visits with "Mrs. C 

Miss C , &c " ; or they drove over to Saltburn, where they 

amused themselves on an afternoon by racing chariots along 
the sandy beach, "with one wheel in the sea". Of all 
pastimes that took Sterne out of doors, none pleased him 
quite so much as this; and none could be more exhilarating. 
Over sands hard and firm enough for the modern automobile, 
the two Crazyites might run their horses for five miles to the 
north, even to Redcar, and then turn about for the exciting 
course homewards through the fresh spray of the ocean. 

The fisherman of the group was the Rev. Robert Lascelles, 
formerly of Durham. Graduating from Lincoln College, 
Oxford, in 1739, he joined Hall-Stevenson's "flying squad- 
ron" against the Jacobite raiders, and subsequently obtained 
the vicarage of Gilling, by Richmond in the West Riding. 
Late in life he published a volume of merry verses on angling, 
shooting, and coursing. This man of the cloth, whose fellow- 
ship Sterne especially enjoyed for his jesting, was nicknamed 
Panty, cut short for familiar speech from Pantagruel, the 
hero of Rabelais 's romance. We read, too, of Andrew Irvine, 
a Cambridge doctor of theology, and master of the grammar 
school at Kirkleatham, a short distance away. Because of his 
resemblance to an Irishman, he was renamed Paddy Andrew. 

Among other Demoniacs, not so easily identified, were the 
men whom Sterne affectionately addressed as "My dear 
Garland, Gilbert, and Cardinal Scroope". The first of the 
three was Nathaniel Garland, a country gentleman; and the 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSHIPS 125 

last was likely a Yorkshire parson. An architect appears, 
too, under the Spanish disguise of Don Pringello, who was 
called over to rebuild Crazy Castle; but so great was his 
admiration for "the venerable remains", that he could only 
be prevailed upon "to add a few ornaments suitable to the 
stile and taste of the age it was built in". Could these men 
be uncovered they might prove as interesting as "Zachary", 
that is, Zachary Moore, whose name found its way into local 
history. He was the spendthrift of the company. Inherit- 
ing a rich and extensive manor at Lofthouse, some ten miles 
south of Skelton, he entered upon a career of riot and 
prodigality. "There is a tradition", says the historian of 
the district,* "that during his travels on the Continent his 
horses ' shoes were made of silver ; and so careless was he of 
money, that he would not turn his horses' head if they got 
loose or fell off, but replaced them with new ones". Among 
his strange caprices, apparently discordant with his character, 
was that of building a school at Lofthouse for the instruction 
of children in the Scriptures, the catechism, and the prayer- 
book. After thirty years of dissipation, he completed "the 
laborious work of getting to the far end of a great fortune ' ' ; 
and was then deserted "by the gay butterflies who had 
sported about him in his summer hour". By the aid of his 
London friends, among whom were men of "royal and 
ducal rank ' ', he obtained an ensigncy in the British army and 
soon afterwards died at Gibraltar. Hall-Stevenson lamented 
his absence from Skelton in an ode beginning 

"What sober heads hast thou made ake? 
How many hast thou kept from nodding? 
How many wise-ones, for thy sake, 
Have flown to thee, and left off plodding?" 

Two colonels were sometimes with the company. One was 
"Colonel Hall" — George Lawson Hall, a brother of the 
master of Skelton, who married a daughter of Lord William 
Manners, and entered the army. The other colonel was 
Charles Lee, at the time an officer on half pay. He fought 
* Ord, History and Antiquities of Cleveland, 275-78. 



126 LAUEENCE STERNE 

in America throughout the French and Indian War, and 
settling afterwards in Virginia and obtaining a major-gen- 
eralship in the Continental army, he sought to wrest the 
supreme command from Washington. "Savage Lee", as 
people called him, was already a quarrelsome companion, 
whom Hall-Stevenson found hard to manage. More remotely 
connected with the Demoniacs was William Hewitt — "old 
Hewitt" — "a very sensible old gentleman but a very great 
humourist", who lived much abroad. Smollett, who met him 
at Scarborough and in Italy, told the story of his curious 
ending. Being attacked by a painful malady while at 
Florence in 1767, Hewitt resolved to take himself off, like 
Atticus, by starvation. "He saw company", says Smollett 
in a note to Humphry Clinker, "to the last, cracked his jokes, 
conversed freely, and entertained his guests with music. 
On the third day of his fast, he found himself entirely freed 
of his complaint, but refused taking sustenance. He said, 
the most disagreeable part of the voyage was past, and he 
should be a cursed fool indeed to put about ship when he was 
just entering the harbour." Persisting in this resolution, he 
soon finished his course. 

The group of strange humourists that gyrated round Hall- 
Stevenson changed of course from .year to year. One would 
fall out and another would be found to take his place. But 
Paddy and Panty, who lived near by, might be counted upon 
at all times; and Sterne never missed, if he could help it, 
the great conclave of demons that assembled in October. 
"A jollier set", says the host, "never met, either before or 
since the flood." At night there were "joyous deliriums 
over the burgundy", when each contributed his share to the 
amusement and the jesting. Sterne was the fiddler. His 
love for the violin and cello and music in general, comes out 
again and again in Tristram Shandy and elsewhere. The 
speech and movements of his characters, would one but observe 
it, are all deftly attuned to musical harmony. What, for 
example, would my uncle Toby be, as he lays his persuasive 
hand upon your heart, without "that soft and irresistible 
piano of voice, which the nature of the argumentum ad 
hominem absolutely requires"? It was a shepherd's pipe 



PASTIMES AND FEIENDSHIPS 127 

that gave the exquisite tone to the scene with Maria by 

the roadside in Bourbonnais: ''Adieu, Maria: adieu, poor 

hapless damsel! some time, but not now, I may hear 

thy sorrows from thy own lips but I was deceived; for 

that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of 
woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular 
steps walk'd softly to my chaise." Yorick, it will be remem- 
bered from Tristram Shandy, quaintly characterised his 
sermons, as he marked and tied them up for future use, by 
an appropriate musical term. Most of them had moderato 
written across their backs, but here and there is an adagio, a 
con strepito, or con Varco, or senza Varco, etc. These are 
but examples. If they carry us a little away from Skelton, 
we certainly are brought back to an evening at the castle in 
that passage where Sterne tunes his Cremona and snaps a 
string : 

' 'Ptr . . r .'. r . . ing twing — twang — prut — trut — 'tis a 
cursed bad fiddle. — Do you know whether my fiddle's in tune 
or no? — trut . . prut . . — They should be fifths. — 'Tis wickedly 
strung — tr ...a.e.i.o.u . — twang. — The bridge is a mile 
too high, and the sound post absolutely down, — else — trut . . 

prut hark! 'tis not so bad a tone. — Diddle diddle, diddle 

diddle, diddle diddle, dum. * * * Twaddle diddle, tweddle 

diddle, — twiddle diddle, twoddle diddle, — twuddle diddle, 

— prut trut — krish — krash — krush. ' ' 

The jesting, hints here and there suggest, was racy and 
salacious, as one should expect from avowed Pantagruelists. 
There were running plays upon words, especially Latin 
words, for the facetious quibbles in fashion with Rabelais and 
the learned humourists of the Renaissance — varied by the 
retelling of old tales from collections in the French and 
Italian tongues. For their, correspondence Sterne and Hall- 
Stevenson devised a Latin of their own after the style of 
the famous Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. The only one 
of these letters between Antony and Laurentius now extant 
was written by Sterne in the midst of noisy companions at a 
York coffee-house, and sent over to Skelton on the eve of his 
setting out for London. As a Demoniac, Sterne defined for 
his friend in this letter the nature of the evil spirit that was 



128 LAURENCE STERNE 

driving him from home to the gaiety of the metropolis: 
il Diabolus iste qui me intravit, non est diabolus vanus, at 
consobrinus suus Lucifer — sed est diabolus amabundus, qui 
non vult sinere me esse solum * * * et tu es possessus cum 
eodem malo spiritu qui te tenet in deserto esse tentatum 
ancillis tuis, et perturbatum uxore tua." If we had a sure 
key to the book, we should doubtless find that of the large 
body of jests and stories in Tristram Shandy, a large num- 
ber had once been heard at Skelton. As if it were so, many 
are the glimpses of Yorick and Eugenius in conversation by 
the fireside and out in the fields. Especially graphic is the 
scene where Yorick, while telling a tawdry story "of a nun 
who fancied herself a shell-fish ' ', is interrupted by his friend, 
who rises, walks around the table, and takes him by the hand. 
Then there is that smart repartee in parody of Alexander's 
reply to Parmenio, as given by Longinus On the Sublime: 

"If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, 
Eugenius — And, if I was you, Yorick, replied Eugenius, so 
would I." 

Sterne's jests, commonly good-natured, could be at times 
sharp and bitter, for he went into wit-combats with the inten- 
tion of winning, though he might come out of them, he says, 
"like a fool". On one occasion his host and Panty took him 
to task for his brutal treatment of a coxcomb, like "the 
puppy" at the George Inn, who had pushed his way into 
their society. ' ' The man ' ', said Sterne in memory of it, ' ' lost 
temper with me for no reason upon earth but that I could 
not fall down and worship a brazen image of learning and 
eloquence, which he set up, to the persecution of all true 
believers — I sat down upon his altar, and whistled in the time 

of his divine service and broke down his carved work, and 

kicked his incense pot to the D , so he retreated, sed non 

sine felle in corde suo'\ 

Prom this jesting and story-telling, Hall- Stevenson took 
the hint for his Crazy Tales, in which eleven of the Demoniacs 
relate gay intrigues "to promote good humour and cheerful- 
ness" through a night at Skelton. Panty 's tale of "The 
Cavalier Nun" was developed from an old monkish distich, 
which, slightly varied, Sterne long afterwards employed again 



PASTIMES AND FRIENDSHIPS 129 

to give point to An Impromptu, run off "in a few moments 
without stopping his pen", while the author was "thoroughly 
soused". Zachary chose his theme from Bandello, drawing 
a parallel between the Italian bishop and Sterne. The 
Privy- Counsellor presented an imitation of Chaucer. Antony 
adjusted an old tale to the boarding-school; and Sterne, 
beginning with the great walnut tree and other reminiscences 
of Cambridge, wandered off into a cock-and-bull story, such 
as fitted his character, though not one of the best of its kind. 
Like these Chaucerian tales of Hall- Stevenson's, Tristram 
Shandy, it is almost needless to add in conclusion, also had 
its living counterpart in Crazy Castle, but after a larger and 
different manner. Not that Sterne, so far as we can divine 
him, exactly transferred to his book living portraits of the 
men whom he met over the rich burgundy. But it was under 
the hospitable roof of Skelton that he associated, in jest, argu- 
ment, and dispute, with those half -mad oddities of human 
nature which he knew how to transform, by the aid of other 
memories, into Eugenius, Mr. Walter Shandy, and my uncle 
Toby. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 

Good fellowship over bright burgundy was doubtless quite 
sufficient for drawing Sterne to Skelton for a week or two 
in October and oftener. But there was another attraction 
for him in the library of old books that had been long col- 
lecting by his host and the family before him. Indeed, 
writers on Sterne, repeating what was said a century ago, 
have given wide currency to the tradition that the humourist 
found and read at Skelton most of those strange volumes that 
go to the learning and adornment of Tristram Shandy. 
Though the tradition is far from the truth, Sterne's intimacy 
with Hall-Stevenson may have led him to reading curious 
books for one of his recreations in the long and obscure years 
at Sutton. We may fancy him on his visits to Skelton poring 
over his friend's big folios and taking three or four of them 
with him as he drove home. Nearer at hand was the library 
of his dean and chapter, rich in manuscripts, and old treatises 
on law, medicine, and divinity, wherein he could have met 
with his humorous instances of casuistry and misplaced 
learning. 

But the books that became a part of Sterne's mental 
equipment must have been his daily companions at Sutton. 
When he emerges from obscurity, he appears at once as a 
book collector on his own account. If the first money from 
the sale of Tristram Shandy went to the purchase of a car- 
riage and a pair of horses, the surplus from the second 
instalment was left with a bookseller for seven hundred books 
which were "set up in my best room". Before his fame 
and the competency that came with it, Sterne's purchases 
must have been more restricted, but even then his income was 
not so small as to leave nothing for his humour. In the 
eighteenth century, York was the centre of the northern 

130 



JW 




THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 131 

book trade. From the surrounding district, libraries of coun- 
try gentlemen were sent in to Caesar Ward, John Todd, and 
other dealers to be disposed of at auction or private sale. 
Auctions were also held every few weeks at inns and town- 
halls in the neighbourhood. For a few shillings Sterne could 
have procured beautiful folios that would now bring a 
handful of guineas, if they could be had at all. To Sterne's 
reading in this formative period, we have a trustworthy, 
though incomplete, index in Tristram Shandy. He there 
reflects of course himself and Hall-Stevenson in the opposite 
tastes of the two Shandys, both of whom are collectors, one 
making a specialty of military architecture and the other of 
the learned humourists. Among the facetiae that Mr. Walter 
Shandy most prized, were Bouchet's Serees, and Bruscam- 
bille's Pensees Facetieuses, including a prologue upon long 
noses, which was bought of a London dealer for three half- 
crowns. The story of the purchase at the book-stall Sterne 
related with the passion of the bibliophile: "There are not 
three Bruscambille 's in Christendom — said the stall-man, 
except what are chain 'd up in the libraries of the curious. 

My father flung down the money as quick as lightning took 

Bruscambille into his bosom hied home from Piccadilly to 

Coleman-street with a treasure, without taking his hand once 
off from Bruscambille all the way." When in a confidential 
mood one day on a visit to Stillington Hall, Sterne told his 
friends there, as John Croft remembered it, what books he 
read and studied most. He placed first the Moyen de Par- 
venir of Beroalde de Verville, and added Montaigne, Rabelais, 
Marivaux, and Dr. Joseph Hall, "Bishop of Exeter in King 
James the First's reign". But he forgot, as was Sterne's 
way, to mention many an author that ought to have been 
on the list. His fireside books were as odd as the men with 
whom he associated at Crazy Castle. From them he drew 
and then cast them aside, in just the same way as he would 
take up his pencil for a caricature of his wife, or his gun for 
an afternoon with the partridges. 

First in the catalogue of books read by the Vicar of Sutton 
were three of the world's greatest humourists — Lucian, "my 
dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes". With Lucian, by; 



132 LAURENCE STERNE 

whose ashes he swore the "oath referential". Sterne was less 
familiar than with the other two ; but we must suppose that 
the Dialogues, read at Cambridge, were taken up again in the 
Sutton period, for he could, when in the mood for it, fall into 
Lucian's tone of gay mockery. The presence of Cervantes, 
whom he knew through Skelton's translation of Don Quixote, 
is felt in one place or another of every volume of Tristram 
Shandy, from the introductory sketches of Yorick and Dr. 
Slop on to the end, through scores of passages pervaded by 
this "gentle Spirit of sweetest humour". Rabelais, though 
Sterne sometimes ranked him after Cervantes, was really, I 
should say, first in his affections. A volume of Gargantua 
or of Pantagruel, Yorick was accustomed to carry in "his 
right-hand coat pocket", that it might be ready for the amuse- 
ment of his friends, as they drew up to the fire after supper. 
On these occasions Yorick read to them, not from the original 
French — for Sterne had little acquaintance with that, though 
he could pick it out by the help of Cotgrave's dictionary, — 
but from the current version of Ozell, a London scribbler, 
who spent his days in mutilating foreign classics for English 
readers. Ozell, text, notes, and all, Sterne had well-nigh by 
heart, and found them most serviceable in the act of com- 
position. Without Rabelais, his jests, whims, anecdotes, and 
splendid extravagances, there would never have been a 
Sterne as we now know him.* 

Rabelais, the most constant of his passions, drew Sterne 
on into the facetious tales and verses of the later Panta- 
gruelists, both French and English, among whom he also 
luxuriated. The Guillaume Bouchet who delighted the heart 
of Mr. Walter Shandy, was a magistrate at Poitiers, where his 
Serees, or Evening Conferences, three volumes in the whole, 
began to appear in 1584. In this vivacious work, Bouchet 
and his friends meet at one another's house on appointed 
evenings for a light supper and to relate incidents that they 
have read of in books or heard of among their neighbours. 

* Sterne 's immense obligations to Ozell 's translation of Rabelais are 
indicated in the marginal notes to the Grenville copy of Tristram Shandy 
in the British Museum. For the humourist's borrowings from Eabelais 
and other French writers, see also John Ferriar, Illustrations of Sterne, 
two vols, (second edition, London, 1812). 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBEAEY 133 

Some one of them usually tells the main story, while the 
others break in with their contributions to the theme, be it of 
wine, water, or women, the fine arts, physicians, lawyers, or 
the clergy. The volumes of Bouchet are an epitome of the 
Gallic wit that lies scattered in the old fabliaux and in- 
numerable contes, the aim of which is mirth and laughter. 

Of books of this kind Sterne rightly gave his preference to 
the Moyen de Parvenir or How to Succeed, which made its 
appearance in 1610, without the author's name. It was 
written, the critics have established, by Beroalde de Verville, 
a canon of the Cathedral of Tours, otherwise known for 
several imitations of Rabelais. As in Bouchet, the plan is a 
symposium, where gather for conversation and story-telling 
Beroalde 's friends under the names of famous men and 
women of antiquity, such as Caesar, Socrates, and Sappho. 
Laughter, eating, drinking, and sleeping are proclaimed the 
four cardinal virtues. The conversations run from theme to 
theme without any apparent connection at first sight; but 
they are really all ordered with great skill, the last word of 
each discourse giving occasion for the one following. Next 
to Rabelais 's profusion of wit, no other book has quite so many 
analogies with Tristram Shandy. 

Bruscambille, another favourite with Sterne, was the nom 
de theatre of a comedian named Deslauriers, whose Fantasies 
or Pensees Facetieuses appeared in 1612. The author 
imagines himself on the stage addressing his audience in 
whimsical prologues, harangues, and paradoxes on cuckoldry, 
pedantry, long and short noses, or in defence of lying or of 
telling the truth, as whim may seize him. Bruscambille was 
a perfect master of what the French call galimatias, a mad 
flow of speech in which incongruity is piled upon incongruity 
for comic effect. "I met", says Bruscambille, to give an 
extreme example of his nonsense, "I met, gentlemen and 
ladies, last night a large, small man with red hair who had 
a beard as black as pepper ; he had just come from a country 
where, except for the animals and the people, there was no 
living soul." How well Sterne learned the art of Bruscam- 
bille, everyone knows who has perused his books or letters, 
though, it should be observed, he never went quite so far as 



134 LAURENCE STEKNE 

his original in a reckless topsy-turvy of ideas and phrases. 
Perhaps he went the farthest when he wrote "A cow broke 
in (to-morrow morning) to my uncle Toby's fortifications 
and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, tearing up 
the sod with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way. ' ' 
Beroalde, Bouchet, and Bruscambille were all in the 
vicar's library when it was sold after his death. With them 
Sterne classed Montaigne, who, though his work is of more 
serious import, wandered on whimsically, as everybody would 
have him, from one topic to another, so that the title of any 
one of his essays gives no clue to the content. Sterne knew 
his Montaigne well, not in the French but in the fine transla- 
tion made by Cotton, the accomplished angler ; and loved him 
with the affection of Thackeray, who took him, instead of an 
opiate, as a bedside book to prattle him to sleep when threat- 
ened by insomnia.* Nor should we forget Scarron's comic 
muse with skirts all bedrabbled, nor the tearful mistress of 
Marivaux and other French novelists with whom Sterne 
carried on frequent flirtations. Last in the line (barring the 
sentimental Marivaux) were the English humourists — Swift 
and his group — who sought to fill the easy chair left vacant 
by Eabelais and his French descendants. To Sterne, Swift 
meant mainly the Tale of a Tub, a cock-and-bull story, with 
digressions upon criticism and madness, digressions upon 
digressions, and further digressions, which, says the author, 
serve a book in the way foreign troops serve a state, for they 
"either subdue the natives or drive them into the most un- 
fruitful corners". Near Swift's Tub, doubtless lay, in 
Sterne's estimation, Dr. John Arbuthnot's Memoirs of Martin 
Scriblerus, long ago pointed out as having some resemblance 
to Tristram Shandy, in its humorous dissertations on science 
and mathematics, education, playthings, and the breeching 

* When Tristram Shandy first appeared, an English gentleman resid- 
ing at Geneva wrote out a fanciful sketch of the author as he imagined 
him from the book, and sent it on to Hall-Stevenson. Amused as well as 
flattered by the letter, Sterne replied, saying with reference to a con- 
jecture that he was a reader of Montaigne: " 'For my conning Mon- 
taigne as much as my prayer book' — there you are right again, — but 
mark a second time, I have not said I admire him as much; — tho' had 
he been alive, I would certainly have gone twice as far [as you say] to 
have smoaked a pipe with him, as with Arch-Bishop Laud or his Chap- 
lains (tho' one of 'em was my grandfather).'' — Morgan Manuscripts. 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 135 

of children. The genius of Pope, who bore a hand in the 
miscellanies of Scriblerus, Sterne took for granted, like the 
rest of his generation, easily quoting his proverbial lines. 
The friendship between the poet and his physician, as depicted 
in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot — the one a satirist and man 
of letters pestered by friends and foes alike, and the other a 
faithful counsellor crying ''Hold! for God's sake you'll 
offend" — struck Sterne's fancy especially, for he carried the 
situation over into Tristram Shandy for his Yorick and 
Eugenius. Finally, he never doubted the truth of Pope's 
doctrine of ruling passions, in accordance with which were 
constructed all of his own characters. 

Sterne also dipped into the scribbling undercurrent of 
the Queen Anne wits for occasional refreshment. There he 
discovered Tom Brown "of facetious memory", one of whose 
anecdotes was turned to a new purpose in the opening para- 
graph of Tristram Shandy; and there he caught sight of two 
books as mad as any he himself was destined to write. One 
of them was An Essay towards the Theory of the Intelligible 
World, from the pen of ' ' Gabriel John ' ', the pseudonym, per- 
haps, of Tom D'Urfey, the profane wit and dramatist. It 
appeared, according to the humorous title-page, "in the 
Year One thousand Seven Hundred &c", and was to consist 
"of a Preface, a Postscript and a Little something between". 
On one page this "little something between" was reduced to 
a series of dashes in place of the usual text, with an explana- 
tory note at the left saying, to quote half of it : " The Author 
very well understands that a good sizable Hiatus discovers a 
very great Genius, there being no Wit in the World more 
Ideal, and consequently more refined, than what is display 'd 
in these elaborate Pages, that have ne're a syllable written 
on them." The other mad book, the work of John Dunton, 
a London bookseller and adventurer, bears the title of A 
Voyage Round the World, * * * containing the Bare Adven- 
tures of Don Kainophilus (1691). To attract the reader, 
Dunton employed every sort of type, including whole pages 
of capitals and black letter, sprinkled with dashes and index- 
hands. He began his tale with the prenatal history of his 
hero, and then ran off into a series of cock-rambles which end 



136 LAUEENCE STEENE 

nowhere, in order that "people shou'd miss what they 
expected and find what they never lookt for". When Sterne 
was charged with plagiarising from Dunton, he wrote to a 
friend to say that he once met with the book in a London 
circulating library and took from it "many of his ideas". 
The very copy of Dunton that Sterne read now rests, it is 
probable, in, the Boston Public Library.* 

Not the least charm for Sterne about the old humourists 
which fell in his way was the quaint erudition that went hand 
in hand with their frank foolery. After the fashion of the 
Renaissance, they took all knowledge for their province. 
Rabelais was a learned physician and Benedictine. Bouchet 
could not discourse on the virtues of wine without giving 
first a history of the symposium from the Greeks down 
through the arnica convivia of the Romans to the drinking 
clubs of his own day, embellished throughout with numerous 
quotations from the ancient poets and historians. Beroalde 
passed in review the arts and sciences of the time, ridiculing 
in his progress mathematics, metaphysics, casuistry, and cur- 
rent literature; and setting up the claim that the Moyen de 
Parvenir was "the centre of all books", wherein one might 
find clearly demonstrated "the reason for all things that have 
been or ever shall be". Even Dunton 's absurd book bore as 
sub-title A Pocket Library; and Arbuthnot — to pass by the bet- 
ter known Swift — ran through, in burlesque, all the arts and 
sciences, back to their origin among the monkeys of India 
and Ethiopia, who were our first philosophers. Erudition 
like this, real or pretended, Sterne greatly enjoyed. It is 
sometimes said that our classics, ancient and modern, are 
over edited ; that the author is submerged in the annotations. 

* This copy was owned by the late James Crossley, an English anti- 
quarian, and after the dispersion of his library in 1885, it found its 
way into the Boston Public Library (February, 1886). On a fly-leaf, 
Crossley wrote: "Eodd [Thomas Eodd, the London book-seller] once 
showed me an original Letter of Sterne in which he mentions this Work, 
from which he took many of his Ideas and which he had met with in a 
London Circulating Library. As the present Copy came from Hook- 
ham's, whose Bookplate, which was on the original boards, I have pasted 
opposite, there is little doubt that this was the identical copy read by 
Sterne." As Hookham's Library was at 15 Old Bond Street, near 
Sterne's London lodgings, there is good ground for the conjecture with 
which Crossley closes his valuable note. 



THE PAESON IN HIS LIBEAEY 137 

Sterne, on the other hand, never finding any fault with learn- 
ing of this kind, disregarded, as we all well might, the author 
and bent his mind upon understanding the editor. A good 
instance of this is his apparent perusal of Hudibras, with 
' 'large annotations" by the Rev. Zachary Grey, a Cambridge 
man, among the multitude of which he may have found all 
that had ever been said about the homunculus. A better 
instance is his use of Philostratus concerning the Life of 
Apollonius Tyaneus, with * * * Notes upon Each Chapter, 
by Charles Blount, the deist. One may imagine Sterne's 
delight as his eye fell upon Blount's preface to the reader: 
" Whether kind or unkind, I shall call you neither, for fear 
lest I be mistaken. * * * As for my Illustrations: Notwith- 
standing they have some coherence with my Text, yet I 
likewise design 'd them as Philological Essays upon several 
Subjects, such as the least hint might present me with". 
True to his promise, Blount made the old spiritual romance 
of Philostratus merely the occasion for learned essays, far 
exceeding in extent the original Greek, on dress, whiskers, 
swearing, death, et cetera, themes which Sterne did not for- 
get, as every reader of him knows, when he came to write 
Tristram Shandy. 

Sterne spent some time on Erasmus — on the Colloquia and 
especially on the Mw/otas fy/cw/uoi/, which had been done into 
English under the title of Moriw Encomium; or a Panegyrick 
upon Folly. Erasmus, like Sterne after him, assumed the 
character of a jester, "playing at pushpin", or "riding 
astride on a hobby-horse", in his journey through a censure 
of men and morals. The Encomium was adorned i ' with above 
fifty curious cuts" by Holbein, of which two would attract 
Sterne above all others — one representing a fierce wrangle of 
disputants, and another depicting the instigation of the devil 
by means of grotesque imps hovering over the head and 
clawing the hair of their unfortunate victim. From Eras- 
mus, Sterne passed on to the casuists and schoolmen, where 
he was amused by discourses on the space occupied by souls, 
the size of hell, debates on "the point of Martin Luther's 
damnation", "the pudder and racket in Councils about ovo-ia 
and woorao-is, — and in the Schools of the learned about 



138 LAURENCE STERNE 

power and about spirit, — about essences, and about quint- 
essences, — about substances, and about space". In the course 
of this reading, he fell in with the ars magna of Raymond 
Lully; the terrible anathemas of Ernulf, Bishop of Roches- 
ter in the eleventh century; the De Legibus Hebrceorum 
Ritualibus of Dr. John Spencer, Master of Corpus Christi 
College, Cambridge, wherein he stopped on the learned 
reasons for and against circumcision ; and Sir Robert Brook 's 
Graunde Abridgement, with other works in ecclesiastical law, 
which tried to explain to him that in certain nice cases, as in 
that of the Duchess of Suffolk, "the mother is not of kin 
to her child". 

Beyond doubt Sterne saw the Utrius Cosmi, Maioris 
scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica His- 
toria by Robert Flud, a Fellow of the College of Physicians at 
Oxford, and the first of the English Rosicrucians. The old 
folio had two dedications, one to the Almighty and the other 
to James the First. In the first chapter, Flud described, after 
Trismegistus and Moses, chaos — or the ens primordiale 
infinitum, informe, as his Latin has it, — under the form of a 
very black smoke or vapour; and for the assistance of the 
reader's imagination, he covered two thirds of a page with a 
black square, writing on each of its four sides Et sic infini- 
tum, lest somebody might suppose that there were boundaries 
to the horrible shadow of undigested matter out of which the 
Almighty created his universe of worlds and stars. This 
square became of course Sterne's page dressed in mourning 
for the death of "poor Yorick". Bacon's essays, we may be 
sure, were in Sterne's library, for he quoted from them and 
modified their phrasing with the greatest ease. He also 
possessed a copy of Baconiana, or Genuine Remains of Francis 
Bacon, a collection of posthumous miscellanies, which had been 
brought out anonymously by Thomas Tenison, Archbishop 
of Canterbury. One of the strange features of this book was 
the archbishop's "Discourse by way of Introduction", added 
as a tag at the end of the volume. Sterne was reading the 
misplaced introduction when he began Tristram Shandy, for 
he "conveyed" a passage from it to his twelfth chapter, and 
not unlikely derived from the archbishop the notion of insert- 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 139 

ing his prefaces and dedications midway in his own book. 
If an introduction may be put after the word finis, when all 
is supposed to be over, why, Sterne Would argue, may it not 
be slipped in anywhere. 

The scholar that most fascinated Sterne was Robert Bur- 
ton, the Oxford recluse who wrote The Anatomy of Melan- 
choly, "the only book", said Boswell of Dr. Johnson, "that 
ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to 
rise". Once under the spell of the Anatomy, there is no 
release for any man, whether he be of the staid character of 
Johnson or of the shifting temper of Sterne. "I have lived", 
wrote its author, to compress an autobiographic passage, "a 
silent, sedentary, solitary, private life in the university, 
penned up most part in my study. Though by my profession 
a Divine, yet out of a running wit, an unconstant, unsettled 
mind, I had a great desire to have some smattering in all 
learning, to be aliquis in omnibus, nullus in singulis, to roam 
abroad, to have an oar in every man's boat, to taste of every 
dish, sip of every cup". An earlier selfhood he discovered 
in Democritus, the ancient Greek sage of Abdera, "a little 
wearish old man, very melancholy by nature", who passed 
his time in his garden, writing under a shady bower, or cut- 
ting up divers creatures "to find out the seat of this atra 
bilis, or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it is engen- 
dered in men 's bodies ; * * ' * saving that he sometimes would 
walk down to the haven and laugh heartily at such variety of 
ridiculous objects, which there he saw". Since the treatise 
of the Greek philosopher, if ever written, was no longer in 
existence, Burton took up the subject anew to the intent that 
he might cure himself and the world of a dreadful malady. 
"I writ of melancholy", he said, "by being busy to avoid 
melancholy." Through "partitions, sections, members, and 
subsections," entangled with medicine, law, morals, and 
divinity, he cut out his theme, strewing his course with thou- 
sands of quotations, ancient and modern, sometimes inserted 
in the text, sometimes printed on the margin, neatly para- 
phrased, or left untranslated, per accidens or as it might hap- 
pen. The Anatomy of Melancholy, with its curious wit and 
learning, was the most useful volume in Sterne's library. 



140 LAUEENCE STEENE 

If Sterne wished a Latin phrase to point a sentence, if he 
wished a good story, never stale if rightly retold, for an 
episode in Tristram Shandy, he had but to open Bnrton, and 
there it lay before him. Without scruple, he transferred to 
his own pages long stretches of the old book, with only such 
changes as genius can not help making when it takes from 
others. 

Besides the Anatomy, Sterne read all sorts of books on 
physiology and medicine. His list of physicians, from whom 
he could quote directly or indirectly, begins with Hippocrates 
and comes down through Coglionissimo Borri, who "discov- 
ered in the cellulse of the occipital parts of the cerebellum 
* * * the principal seat of the reasonable soul ' ', to Dr. James 
Mackenzie, who argued for the great effects "which the pas- 
sions and affections of the mind have upon the digestion". 
An extraordinary source of amusement to Sterne were trea- 
tises on midwifery, which was then just becoming a part of 
the regular practice of physicians. In these books and pam- 
phlets one physician ridiculed and scolded another, holding 
up to contempt the instruments his opponent invented to 
bring children safely into the world, and sometimes inter- 
spersing his narrative with noisy disputes between the doctor 
and the midwife who was being displaced by the new science. 
Celebrated at the time was the angry altercation between 
Dr. John Burton of York and Dr. William Smellie of Glas- 
gow. Burton's books, now of great rarity, were worth own- 
ing even in Sterne's day for their copperplates etched by 
George Stubbs, the horse-painter. With local as well as dis- 
tant controversies, Sterne thus kept pace simply for the 
humour of it. 

That Sterne should have also extracted humour out of 
mechanics and military engineering is the whim of his genius 
most akin to madness. True, memories of childhood carried 
him back to life in Irish barracks, but it is doubtful if he had 
ever seen a town fortified against a siege. His knowledge of 
the siege of Namur, for example, which plays so large a part 
in Tristram Shandy, was derived mostly from The Life of 
William the Third, Late King of England, an anonymous 
military biography that appeared the year after his Majesty's 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRAEY 141 

death. It may have been Sterne or it may have been Hall- 
Stevenson who purchased every book he came across on mili- 
tary science; but it was Sterne who perused them. These 
treatises on the art of war had an immense run in the century 
before Sterne, when military engineers brought to the con- 
struction of defences, and all that pertains thereto, the assist- 
ance of the newer mathematics, like Napier's Logarithms and 
Gunter's Sines and Tangents, which performed wonderful 
feats merely by addition and subtraction, without the help of 
multiplication and division. Just as with the old romances 
of chivalry, one Amadis begat another in an endless prog- 
eny down through Esplandian, Florisando, and Palmerin; 
so it was with the books on military engineering, which 
in one language or another spread throughout western 
Europe. Inasmuch as their elaborate calculations fill and 
occupy the mind beyond all other studies, the author of the 
Anatomy recommended them among the best antidotes against 
melancholy. 

The way in which Sterne entered upon their track, losing 
himself soon in the mazes, is reflected, I dare say, in what is 
said of my uncle Toby's reading in Tristram Shandy. Most 
of the first year my uncle Toby pored over "GobesiusV mili- 
tary architecture and pyroballogy, translated from the 
Flemish" — presumably, Leonhard Gorecius's Descriptio Belli 
Ivonio3 (1578), — that he might discourse learnedly on the 
uses of artillery. After this close preliminary study, he was 
able to read rapidly the next year ten or twelve other crabbed 
authors, just as the schoolboy, after going through his first 
book in Latin, is supposed to proceed easily with the rest. 
To take them chronologically, first came Girolamo Cataneo, 
whose Libro di Fortificare, Offendere e Diffendere (1564) 
contains "brief tables to know readily how many ranks of 
footmen etc. go to making a just battle ' ' ; Agostino Kamelli, 
with Le Diverse ed Artificiose Machine (1588), descriptive of 
various contrivances for lifting heavy loads, constructing 
bridges, and hurling ignited grenades and other artificial 
fires; and the Florentine Lorini, who published a book on 
fortifications in 1609, and served with honour under the kings 
of France and Spain. So much for Italy. Then followed 



142 LAURENCE STERNE 

Marolois, whose Fortification ou Architecture Militaire 
(1615) told Sterne how to attack and how to defend, with 
many mathematical details and more than a hundred plates, 
including one of Ostend prepared to endure the most pro- 
tracted siege; the Nouvelle Maniere de Fortification (1618) 
by means of sluices, written by Stevinus, a distinguished 
Dutch mathematician and engineer of the dykes, within whose 
book Yorick's sermon on conscience long lay concealed; Les 
Fortifications (1629) of the Chevalier de Ville, who attacked 
Artois under the eyes of Louis the Thirteenth, and was the 
first, it is said, to write upon the construction and effects of 
mines; the Trait e des Fortifications (1645) by the Comte de 
Pagan, who conducted the sieges of Caen, Montauban, and 
Nancy, losing an eye and finally his sight completely in the 
service of his king; and Frangois Blondel, who constructed 
great public buildings, arches of triumph, and published 
among other books L'Art de jetter les Bombes (1685). The 
long list for the second year closes with the Nouvelle Maniere 
de Fortifier les Places (1702) by Baron Van Coehorn, the 
great Dutch engineer who fortified Namur — where my uncle 
Toby received his grievous wound, — and gallantly defended 
the citadel until, himself wounded and his regiment cut to 
pieces, he was obliged to capitulate to his still greater rival, 
Prestre de Vauban, afterwards Marshal of France. This was 
the Vauban who designed new fortifications for most of the 
cities of France and directed fifty sieges, winning town after 
town in the Netherlands, with Louis the Fourteenth often 
standing by, as at Namur, to witness the final blows that 
compelled the surrender. The methods by which Vauban 
built and by which he won, Sterne found explained in 
De VAttaque et de la Defense des Places (1737-42). 

Notwithstanding his reading in all these books, Sterne — if 
we may follow the hints from my uncle Toby — had not yet 
learned much about projectiles. For this knowledge he went 
to Tartaglia's Quesiti ed Invenzioni Diverse (1546), where he 
was met with the demonstration that a cannon-ball does not 
do its mischief by moving in a straight line. Having dis- 
covered the road along which a cannon-ball can not go, he set 
out to discover next the road in which it must go. His search 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 143 

began with the Pratique de la Guerre (1650) of Francois 
Malthus, who gave precise directions for the use of artillery, 
bombs, and mortars; and the search ended with Galileo and 
Torricelli, whose infallible laws of the parabola he could not 
understand. There Sterne stopped, hopelessly bewildered. 
In the strange journey he had consulted now and then the 
Acta Eruditorum, a long and learned series of year-books in 
Latin, containing the latest discussions and discoveries in 
medicine, theology, and jurisprudence, as well as in mechanics 
and military architecture. 

From this array of books, no one should infer that Sterne 
was a man of erudition. He probably could not follow a 
demonstration in mechanics involving the higher mathematics. 
It is, for example, noteworthy that he showed no interest in 
Stevinus's solution of the problem of the inclined plane, the 
achievement that gives the Dutch mathematician his place 
in the history of mechanics. As if ignorant of the brilliant 
discovery, Sterne referred to Stevinus as the inventor of 
"a sailing chariot * * * of wonderful contrivance and velo- 
city ' ', belonging to Prince Maurice, for a sight of which ' ' the 
learned Peireskius * * * walked a matter of five-hundred 
miles ' '. The truth seems to be that, while designing Tristram 
Shandy during the last years at Sutton, Sterne thumbed 
many old quartos and folios, amusing himself with maps, 
plates, and descriptions of sieges, to the end that my uncle 
Toby might be proficient in" the phrases of military science. 
In that aim Sterne certainly succeeded; for he wrote, with 
the ease of an expert, of scarp and counter-scarp, counter- 
guard and demi-bastion, covered-way, glacis, ravelin and 
half -moon, on through saps, mines, and palisadoes. 

The books that have been enumerated by no means com- 
prise all that Sterne read at Sutton. They are rather only 
the curiosities ; but as such they are the most significant, for 
they show wherein Sterne fed his humour. He continued to 
quote from the ancient classics, which he had read at school 
and college, as if they were still his companions. To describe 
his impatient moods he cited Hotspur when "pestered with a 
popinjay"; and the name which he bears in letters was taken 
from the jester whom Hamlet once knew. He read Lord 



144 LAURENCE STERNE 

Rochester, Dryden, and others of the Restoration; and with 
the wits of the next half century he was still more familiar. 
Voltaire's Candide, Johnson's Rasselas, and other notable 
books he read as they came out, or saw them in the stalls of 
York dealers. But it is unnecessary to proceed with these 
miscellanies, since here is already, in Dryden 's phrase, God's 
plenty. As a divine, Sterne knew well the religious literature 
that was expected of him. It is a pleasure to discover in him 
traces of Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici and of Jeremy 
Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying. For forming his 
style as a preacher he studied the sermons of Hall, Berkeley, 
Young, Tillotson, and other moralists and divines, from whom 
he drew liberally, sometimes merely paraphrasing the original 
when the harvest season, it may be, gave him scant time for 
independent composition. Nor should we forget the Scrip- 
tures which he read and re-read during the long winter even- 
ings at Sutton, with the result that his style became saturated 
with the words and phrases of the English version. Many a 
clergyman since his time has run through indexes and con- 
cordances to the Bible in quest of "God tempers the wind to 
the shorn lamb ' ' ; but the labour has been in vain, for the 
sentence, possessing the beauty and melody of inspiration, is 
Sterne's own recoinage of a crude proverb. 

Along with his reading, Sterne played with his pen 
occasionally as well as with his pencil and his gun. Between 
the paragraph- writing for the newspapers and Tristram 
Shandy, lay several whims in verse and prose, including a 
satirical pamphlet which was duly printed at York. One of 
these minor pieces — a very pretty fancy cast in the form of a 
letter to a Mr. Cook, — after remaining in manuscript for more 
than a century, was published in 1870 by Paul Stapfer in 
his study of Sterne.* How the French critic came by it 
we will leave to his own strange narrative: 

' ' Two years ago, a friend of mine in England, an M. A. of 
the University of Oxford and then Vice-Principal of Elizabeth 
College in the island of Guernsey, was visiting a lady of his 
acquaintance at York. Among other things the conversation 
turned to autographs; whereupon the lady said she had an 
* Laurence Sterne, sa Tersonne et ses Ouvrages (Paris, 1870). 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 145 

entire essay in the hand of Sterne, which had never been 
published; and she showed it to him. M. ***** 9 after 
examining it, said: 

" 'I shall soon see a friend who is now at work on a study 
of Sterne ; I am sure that he would be glad to have this piece ; 
but I should not like to show it to him unless he may be per- 
mitted to copy and publish it.' 'You shall have it,' replied 
the lady. 

"I received the manuscript, copied and returned it. 
Some time afterwards I met the owner of it and naturally 
asked her how a precious manuscript like this came into her 
possession. The very vague information which she gave me in 
the course of the conversation left only the most confused im- 
pression on my mind. For this reason I intended later to 
ask her to write a short note upon the history of these sheets : 
but I learned that she was then so ill as to render impossible 
all correspondence. I was thus compelled to forego any 
exact knowledge of the matter, and even a second perusal of 
the manuscript which she had offered to place at my disposal 
again that I might make a facsimile of it." 

"We have then", adds Stapfer in comment upon the 
story, "no external proof of the authenticity of the fragment. 
All we can say is that the hand, remarkably fair and firm, is 
identical with what we have already seen of Sterne's; but 
there is no signature." 

It would be quite easy to set up an argument against 
accepting as Sterne's this late discovery. Those who know 
Sterne only from Tristram Shandy may say that it hardly 
resembles anything in that book. Those who know Sterne a 
little better may say that it is only one among the scores of 
imitations and forgeries that followed in the wake of his 
popularity. And to everybody the tale told by the lady of 
York, so far as there is any, must seem a fabrication. But 
other manuscripts, Sterne's beyond doubt, have drifted down 
in the same obscure ways ; and the content of the one in ques- 
tion is in perfect harmony with an allegorical phase of mind 
through which Sterne was passing before he took up Tristram 
Shandy. In this case the allegory ends with a moral reflec- 
tion, playfully supported by a line from Pope 's Essay on Man, 

10 



146 LAURENCE STERNE 

occurring in the first epistle near the passage which Sterne 
quoted in a letter to Miss Lumley, back in 1740. The spell- 
ing and abbreviations, as printed by Stapfer, correspond with 
Sterne's peculiar usage; an apt phrase recalls now and then 
his fine sense for style ; and the background is Sutton without 
much doubt. 

The interesting trifle — only half worked out — is a dream 
or meditation. The Vicar of Sutton had spent, I should say, 
an evening in his library over Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la 
Pluralite des Mondes, in its day a famous book on the vast 
number of new worlds discovered or made probable by 
modern science. "A leaf on a tree growing in the garden", 
said Fontenelle, "is a little world inhabited by innumerable 
animalcules invisible to the naked eye, to whom it appears 
as an immense expanse with mountains and ravines. Those 
on one side have no intercourse with those who live on the 
other, any more than we have with men at the antipodes. 
Just so, it seems to me, the great planets moving through the 
immensity of space may be likewise inhabited with beings." 
The dwellers upon earth, moralised Sterne with reference to 
this passage, have commonly regarded themselves as the 
centre of the universe. "So considerable do they imagine 
themselves as doubtless to hold that all these numerous stars 
(our sun among the rest) were created with the only view 
of twinkling upon such of them, as have occasion to follow 
their cattle late at night." Whereas the truth seems to be 
that "we are situate on a kind of isthmus, which separates 
two Infinitys", one revealed by the telescope and the other 
by the microscope. "On one side infinite Power and wisdom 
appear drawn at full extent; on the other, in miniature. 
The infinitely strong and bold strokes there, the infinitely 
nice and delicate Touches here, shew equally in both the 
divine hand." 

His mind under the sway of these speculations, the vicar 
laid aside his book, strolled out into his orchard, and stopped 
near one of those plum trees which he had planted on first 
coming to Sutton. It was a brilliant summer night without 
a cloud. As he stood there, Fontenelle's myriad worlds were 
all about him. Far above were the moon and the countless 



THE PABSON IN HIS LIBRAEY 147 

stars. By his side, on each green leaf of his plum trees were 
nations performing ''actions as truly great as any we read 
of in the history of Alexander. Their courage, resolution, 
and patience of Pain may be as great as that exhibited by the 
Macedonian army, nay and even the prize of the contest no 
way inferior to that which animated the brave Greeks. The 
possession or conquest of the Leaf may gratify as many and 
as strong desires in them, as that of the earth in us". 

Time and space, Sterne further reflected, are but relative 
notions depending upon the size and shape of the brain. To 
the beings that people the universe comprised within his plum 
tree, an hour or a minute may seem as long as four score and 
ten years to us. On the tricks that time and place may play 
with us, there came to Sterne's mind, "a very fine Specta- 
tor",* wherein is related a story of Mahomet from the Koran. 
"The angel Gabriel", according to Addison, "took Mahomet 
out of his bed one morning to give him a sight of all things 
in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which the 
prophet took a distinct view of ; and after having held ninety 
thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his 
bed. All this, says the Alcoran, was transacted in so small a 
space of time, that Mahomet at his return found his bed still 
warm, and took up an earthern pitcher, which was thrown 
down at the very instant that the angel Gabriel carried him 
away, before the water was all spilt." 

At this point in his reverie, Sterne returned to the rectory 
and went to bed. "From that time", runs the narrative, 
"I knew not what happen 'd to me, till by degrees I found 
myself in a new state of being, without any remembrance or 
suspicion that I had ever existed before, growing up grad- 
ually to reason and manhood, as I had done here. The world 
I was in was vast and commodious. The heavens were en- 
lighten 'd with abundance of smaller luminarys resembling 
stars, and one glaring one resembling the moon ; but with this 
difference that they seem'd fix'd in the heavens, and had no 
apparent motion. There were also a set of Luminarys of a 
different nature, that gave a dimmer light. They were of 
various magnitudes, and appear 'd in different forms. Some 
* No. 94. 



148 LAURENCE STERNE 

had the form of crescents; others, that shone opposite to the 
great light, appear 'd round. We call'd them by a name, 
which in our language would sound like second stars. Besides 
these, there were several luminous streaks running across the 
heavens like our milky way ; and many variable glimmerings 
like our north-lights. ' ' In his new world the dreamer passed 
several ages and then seemed to return to earth, where he was 
first rallied and then persecuted for his astronomical opinions. 
In process of time "began to be heard all over the world a 
huge noise and fragor in the skys, as if all nature was 
approaching to her dissolution. The stars seem'd to be torn 
from their orbits, and to wander at random thro ' the heavens. 
* * * * all was consternation, horrour, and amaze; no less 
was expected than an universal wreck of nature. What ensu'd 
I know not. All of a sudden, I knew not how, I found 
myself in bed, as just waking from a sound sleep. * * * * 
I hurri'd into the orchard, and by a sort of natural instinct 
made to the plumb-tree under which pass'd my last night's 
reverie. I observ'd the face of the heavens was just the same 
as it had appear 'd to me immediately before I left my former 
state ; and that a brisk gale of wind, which is common about 
sun rising, was abroad. I recollected a hint I had read in 
Fontenelle who intimates that there is reason to suppose that 
the Blue on Plumbs is no other than an immense number of 
living creatures. I got into the tree, examin'd the clusters 
of plumbs; found that they hung in the same position, and 
made the same appearance with the constellations of second 
stars, I had been so familiarly acquainted with, excepting 
that some few were wanting, which I myself had seen fall. 
I cou'd then no longer doubt how the matter was." 

The world to which the dreamer had been transported by 
the angel Gabriel for some thousands of years was, it would 
seem, none other than the blue surface of a luscious plum 
growing on his favourite tree. The luminaries that shone 
about him like "second stars" were other plums dangling 
above him. The "luminous streaks running across the 
heavens like our milky way ' ' were branches of the plum tree, 
and "the many variable glimmerings like our north-lights" 
were the leaves playing in the moonbeams. The damage to 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY I49 

Sterne's solar system had been caused by a wind that here 
and there sent a plum to the ground. 

The dream is neatly rounded with a moral and a prophecy : 

"0 the vanity of worldly things, and even of worlds 
themselves! O world, wherein I have spent so many happy 
days ! the comforts, and enjoyments I am separated from ; 
the acquaintance and friends I have left behind me there ! 
the mountains, rivers, rocks and plains, which ages had 
f amiliariz 'd to my view ! with you I seem 'd at home ; here I 
am like a banish 'd man; every thing appears strange, wild 
and savage! the projects I had form'd! the designs I had 
set on foot, the friendships I had cultivated ! How has one 
blast of wind dash'd you to pieces! . . . But thus it is: 
Plumbs fall, and Planets shall perish 

" 'And now a Bubble burst, and now a world.' The time 
will come when the powers of heaven shall be shaken, and the 
stars shall fall like the fruit of a tree, when it is shaken by a 
mighty wind ! ' ' 

Akin to this fancy addressed to Mr. Cook is a meditation 
in verse called The Unknown O, with the explanatory title 
written beneath : ' ' Verses occasion 'd by hearing a Pass-Bell ' ', 
that is, the knell for the death of some parishioner at Sutton 
or some citizen of York. Sterne liked the poem so well that 
he took it away with him to Coxwold, where it was carefully 
guarded by his successors for a century; one of whom — the 
Eeverend George Scott — permitted Thomas Gill of Easing- 
wold to print it in his Vallis Eboracensis (1852), a book on 
the history and antiquities of the York valley. Spirited away 
from Coxwold, the manuscript is now possessed by a member 
of the Scott family. Though quite original in its details, the 
poem bears some analogies to the Emperor Hadrian's famous 
address to his departing soul as translated by Pope and after- 
wards elaborated by the poet in "the Dying Christian to his 
Soul". The abbreviations of the manuscript and the use of 
y for th, reproduced here, are a little puzzling at first sight; 
and quaint obscurity is lent to the diction by astronomical 
and other symbols which had come under Sterne's eye in 
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and perhaps in one of 



150 LAUBENCE STERNE 

Pope 's minor satires. Taken in order, the symbols , 75, 8 , 
and if stand for the world, God, heaven, and the soul : 

Hark e my gay Fr d y* solemn Toll 
Speaks y e departure of a soul ; 

'Tis gone, Y ts all we know not where 

Or how y e unbody'd soul do's fare 

In that mysterious none knows, 
But IB alone to w m it goes ; 
To whom departed souls return 
To take th ir Doom to smile or mourn. 

Oh! by w* glimm'ring light we view 
The unknown O we 're hast 'ning to ! 
God has lock'd up y e mystic Page, 
And curtain 'd darkness round y e stage ! 
Wise b to render search perplext 
Has drawn 'twixt y s O & y e next 
A dark impenetrable screen 
All behind w ch is yet unseen ! 
We talk of « , we talk of Hell, 
But w* yy* mean no tongue can tell! 
Heaven is y e realm where angels are 
And Hell y e chaos of despair. 
But w* y ese awful truths imply, 
None of us know before we die ! 
Wheth er we will or no, we must 
Take y e succeeding O on trust. 

This hour perhaps o r F rd is well, 
Death-struck, y e next he cries, Farewell ! 
I die ! and y et for ought we see, 

Ceases at once to breath & be 

Thu s launch 'd f m life's ambiguous shore 
Ingulph'd in Death appears no more, 
Then undirected to repair, 
To distant O s we know not where. 
Swift flies the U, perhaps 'tis gone 
A thousand leagues beyond y e sun; 
Or 2 ce 10 thousand more 3 ce told 
* They. 



THE PARSON IN HIS LIBRARY 151 

Ere y e forsaken clay is cold ! 

And yet who knows if Fr nds we lov'd 

Tho' dead may be so far remov'd; 

Only y e vail of flesh between, 

Perhaps yy watch us though unseen. 

Whilst we, y ir loss lamenting, say, 

They're out of hearing far away; 

Guardians to us perhaps they're near 

Concealed in Vehicles of air, 

And yet no notices yy give 

Nor tell us where, nor how yy live ; 

Tho' conscious whilst with us below, 

How much y ms * desired to know. 

As if bound up by solemn Fate 

To keep y e secret of y ir state, 

To tell y ir joys or pains to none, 

That man might live by Faith alone. 

Well, let my sovereign, if he please, 

Lock up his marvellous decrees ; 

Why sh d I wish him to reveal 

W* he thinks proper to conceal? 

It is enough y* I believe 

Heaven 's bright 1 ' y n I can conceive ; 

And he y 1 makes it all his care 

To serve God here shall see him there! 

But oh ! w* O s shall I survey 

The moment y* I leave y s clay? 

How sudden y e surprize, how new! 

Let it, my God, be happy too. 

The Unknown O is but one of many poems that Sterne 
scribbled off for the entertainment of himself and his friends. 
On his annual visits to Skelton, it was his custom to recite 
cock-and-bull stories after the type of the one assigned to 
him in Crazy Tales. In collaboration with his host, he com- 
posed, it it said, on one of these occasions, the following 
classical inscription for the front of the reservoir which sup- 
plied Skelton Castle with water: 
* Themselves. 



152 LAURENCE STERNE 

1 ' Leap from thy mossy' cavern 'd bed, 
Hither thy prattling waters bring, 
Blandusia's Muse shall crown thy head, 
And make thee to a sacred spring. ' ' 

In a quite different mood is the ode that Sterne inserted in 
Tristram Shandy, beginning " Harsh and untuneful are the 
notes of Love", and suddenly breaking off in the second 
stanza with "0 Julia!" But from these brief poems and 
numerous facetious and sentimental verses that once floated 
through newspapers and magazines as Sterne's, one quickly 
returns to The Unknown . This clever meditation, with its 
warning to "my gay friend", and the flight of the soul to a 
region three score and ten thousand leagues beyond the sun 
before the clay which it left became cold, is the best that the 
Muse could do for Laurence Sterne. 



CHAPTER VII 

A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 

1751-1759 

When Sterne wrote his meditations in verse and prose 
cannot be determined within narrow limits. A quotation 
from Pope's Essay on Man in the fragment addressed to 
Mr. Cook and another in a letter to Miss Lumley before she 
became Mrs. Sterne, may indicate a very early date, if the 
reader wishes to take the coincidence that way. But this and 
the other meditation may really belong to any year of the 
Sutton period. The point to be observed about them is that 
they give us a glimpse of Sterne exercising his pen in the 
moral and devotional themes of a great poet, rather apart 
from his prevailing mood ; for he had not yet picked up the 
talent that lay nearest to him. Among his friends, as we 
have drawn his portrait at Stillington Hall and Skelton 
Castle, he was in no sense a moralist, but a parson who loved 
a jest above all else. During his last years at Sutton he 
belonged to a convivial club, composed of several clergymen 
and substantial citizens of York, who assembled o 'nights at 
Sunton's Coffee-House in Coney Street, fast by the George 
Inn. Anecdotes were set afloat of what he said and did when 
chosen president of the evening, but they are too impalpable 
to find record here. As yet he had published nothing by which 
his wit could be judged. Now accident brought the occasion 
and he made the most of it. 

Accident indeed brought the humourist into print ; but in 
the incidents of his life previous to the event, one may see 
working a half-conscious plan. As early as the date of the 
quarrel with his uncle over political paragraphs in the news- 
papers, Sterne perhaps had a vague notion that he might 
some day write for himself; for while in the act of turning 
author, he announced to his friends, as the reason for it, that 

153 



154 LAUEENCE STERNE 

he was tired of employing his brains for other people's 
advantage. Much of his curious reading also looks like 
special preparation for a literary career; but his farming 
was for years an encumbrance that impeded him greatly. 
Fortunately for literature, his land projects had issued in 
miserable failure. Some months before the awards were 
made to him under the Sutton Enclosure Act, he resolved to 
rid himself of unnecessary parish business — land, tithes, and 
the botheration of all taxes. So he informed, late in the 
autumn of 1758, the Rev. John Blake in a letter concluding 
with the paragraph: 

"I thank God, I have settled most of my affairs — let my 

freehold to a promising tenant have likewise this week let 

him the most considerable part of my tyths, and shall clear 
my hands and head of all county entanglements, having at 
present only ten pounds a year in land and seven pounds 
a year in Corn Tyth left undisposed of, which shall be quitted 
with all prudent speed. This will bring me and mine into 
a narrow compass, and make us, I hope, both rich and happy." 

And in memory of his sad experiences at Sutton, he wrote, 

six months before his death, to a certain Sir W who was 

planning to open marl beds upon his estate, to warn him 
against an undertaking sure to end in disaster. "I was 
once", said Sterne in his humour, "such a puppy myself, as 
to pare, and burn, and had my labour for my pains, and two 
hundred pounds out of my pocket. Curse on farming (said 
I), I will try if the pen will not succeed better than the spade. 
The following up of that affair (I mean farming) made me 
lose my temper, and a cart load of turnips was (I thought) 
very dear at two hundred pounds. 

"In all your operations may your own good sense guide 

you bought experience is the devil. Adieu, adieu! 

Believe me yours most truly, L. Sterne." 

While Sterne was interchanging letters with Blake about 
his farming, the weather, and parish business, it began to be 
noised about the coffee-houses that trouble was brewing 
among the clergy and officials of the cathedral ; that the dean, 
to give a detail or two, had broken a solemn promise ; that the 
dean and the archbishop were at the point of a complete 



A GOOD WAEM WATCH-COAT 155 

breach, etc. At the heels of these rumours, which were spread 
far beyond York by country gentlemen who had come in for 
the election, the quarrel broke forth into a warfare of pam- 
phlets. For the first time since his appointment to Sutton, 
Sterne was then at full leisure. The contested election of the 
year was over, his oats were threshed, his barley had been 
sold to the maltman, and his farm and tithes had been leased 
to a neighbour for a series of years. As friend and champion 
of the dean, Sterne entered the broil with rare zest, bringing 
it to a close in a burst of ridicule and laughter. 

The story of this quarrel, which terminated in Sterne's 
facetious History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat, may be 
pieced together from the several pamphlets that were issued, 
the York Courant, and the local records of the time. Its 
beginnings go back to intrigues and dissensions immediately 
after the coming of Archbishop Hutton and Dean Fountayne. 
Some account of the fracas has been given in an earlier 
chapter; it now remains to add those details which concern 
Sterne and his first excursion into the literature of wit. The 
archbishop, said Sterne, "might have had his virtues, but the 
leading part of his character was not Humility". The dean, 
an old college acquaintance of the humourist, was a colourless, 
good-natured ecclesiastic, inclined however to insist upon his 
prerogatives. Neither of these dignitaries resided in York. 
The archbishop's palace was then, as now, at Bishopthorpe, 
two or three miles out of the city; and the dean passed most 
of his time at Melton, his estate in South Yorkshire. Little 
differences that early sprang up between them were fomented 
by Dr. Francis Topham, the leading ecclesiastical lawyer at 
York. Dr. Topham, a year or so older than Sterne, "was 
descended from an ancient and honourable family of York- 
shire". Bred to the law, he graduated LL.B. from Sidney 
Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1734, and received from the 
same university the degree of LL.D. in 1739. Whether the 
two men met at Cambridge, it is not said ; but they both set- 
tled at York in the same year or thereabouts, where Dr. Top- 
ham quickly established himself in the favour of those high 
in the Church. Any office, however small, he was ready to 
snap up for the increase of his income. He became in course 



156 LAURENCE STERNE 

of time, though he did not yet enjoy all these positions, 
Commissary and Keeper-General of the Exchequer and Pre- 
rogative Courts of the Archbishop of York, " Official to the 
Archdeacon of York, Official to the Archdeacon of the East 
Riding, Official to the Archdeacon of Cleveland, Official to the 
Precentor, Official to the Chancellor, and Official to several 
of the prebendaries". He was thus able to lay by, needless 
to add, a handsome fortune, destined to be squandered by a 
spendthrift son. 

Never satisfied with the offices that he held, Dr. Topham 
was alwa} r s manoeuvring for more. In the course of a few 
weeks after Dean Fountayne came to York in the winter of 
1747-48, one or more friends of the hungry lawyer recom- 
mended him to the dean as a person eminently qualified for 
any legal position that might fall directly within the dean's 
patronage or might be secured for him through the dean's 
vote and interest in the chapter. It was well known that 
Dr. Topham had his eye at this time on two ecclesiastico-legal 
offices that were sure to become vacant very soon ; to wit, the 
Commissaryship of the Peculiar Court of Pickering and 
Pocklington, which was in the dean's absolute gift, and the 
Commissaryship of the Dean and Chapter of York, in the 
disposition of which the dean's voice, as head of the chapter, 
was potent above all the rest. The two offices, valued 
respectively at six and twenty pounds a year, were then held 
by Dr. William Ward, who was in feeble health and likely 
to die at any moment. Subsequent to the application of his 
friends, Dr. Topham had a formal interview with Dr. Foun- 
tayne, which resulted in a general promise of the first office 
and of the dean's aid in obtaining the other. But Dr. Ward 
did not die so soon as was expected ; and in the meantime the 
dean became less favourably impressed with Dr. Topham 's 
character. A plan was devised whereby Dr. Ward should 
remain in nominal possession of the two commissaryships, 
while the fees should go to Dr. Mark Braithwaite, an advocate 
in the ecclesiastical court, a poor but estimable man, who felt 
unable to incur the legal expense incidental to the issue of 
new patents to the offices in question. To this arrangement 
Dr. Topham agreed with great reluctance and only, it was his 



A GOOD WABM WATCH-COAT 157 

claim, on the assurance that the positions should fall to him- 
self on the death of Dr. Braithwaite, who, though in fairly 
good health, was of a delicate constitution as well as some- 
what advanced in age. The dean, however, did not under- 
stand it that way ; he thought himself rid of Dr. Topham and 
all further solicitations from him or his friends. But he was 
unacquainted with the resources of the man he had to deal 
with. Dr. Topham, as the legal adviser to Archbishop Hut- 
ton, watched closely the conduct of the dean, and on every 
opportunity for creating friction between them, despatched 
mischievous messages to his client when in London or wherever 
else his Grace might be. In the autumn of 1748, a dispute 
arose over the appointment of preachers in the cathedral. 
The dean, it was averred, ordered the pulpit locked against a 
prebendary chosen for the day by the chancellor. The dis- 
pute lingered on through the following winter. As a reward 
for his able defence of the archbishop's rights on this and 
other occasions, Dr. Topham was appointed, on June 28, 
1751, Commissary and Keeper-General of the Exchequer and 
Prerogative Courts of the Archbishop of York, the most 
comfortable office of all in the long list before enumerated. 

In the meantime, so uncertain is human life, Dr. Braith- 
waite had died; and in June, 1751, the feeble Dr. Ward, who 
had strangely outlived him by nearly a year,* followed in 
his footsteps, leaving vacant the Commissaryship of the Dean 
and Chapter and that of the Peculiar Court of Pickering 
and Pocklington. Dr. Topham made a grasp for both of 
them, notwithstanding the lucrative office he had just received. 
A majority of the chapter, he thought, were for his appoint- 
ment to the first position. But the dean brought up the mat- 
ter, it was alleged, when the lawyer's friends were absent, and 
threw his influence in favour of William Stables, Bachelor 
of Laws, who was easily elected on the first of August. Dr. 
Topham 's charge that the chapter was made up against him 
was indeed true, for there were present on that day only his 
enemies — the dean, the canons residentiary — Charles Cowper 
and William Berdmore — and Laurence Sterne. In spite of this 
rebuff, Dr. Topham felt so certain of the second position that 

* York Courant, August 21, 1750 and July 2, 1751. 



158 LAUEENCE STERNE 

he had the patent for it made out, with his name written in 
ready for the dean's seal. The dean however gave the one 
legal office then in his sole gift to his friend Laurence Sterne. 
The appointment, of which no record is discoverable, was 
probably made within a week or two after the election of 
William Stables to the other position. 

Dr. Topham raised a loud clamour over this shameless 
betrayal of his hopes. It was everywhere given out by him 
and his friends that the dean had promised him two patents 
and had afterwards broken his word. This grave charge 
the dean let pass until he came to York again, a few months 
later, to preside over "a public Sessions Dinner" held 
at the residence of George Woodhouse, a wine-merchant of 
the parish of St. Michael-le-Belfrey. There were present 
the usual company of prebendaries and other officials of the 
chapter, Dr. Topham, and one or more country gentlemen. 
Knowing that an extraordinary scene might occur at the 
dinner, Sterne, always glad of a quarrel, rode in from Sutton. 
As soon as the plates were removed, the dean, turning to Sir 
Edmund Anderson of Kilnwick, openly accused Dr. Topham 
of spreading abroad false reports to the harm and discredit 
of the dean and chapter. 

It is true, the dean admitted, that I once promised 
Dr. Topham my own Commissaryship of Pickering and Pock- 
lington ; but he subsequently renounced all claim to it in 
favour of Dr. Braithwaite. When it became vacant by the 
death of Dr. Braithwaite and Dr. Ward (in whose name the 
patent had remained), I looked upon myself as clearly and 
fully at liberty to dispose of it as I pleased, certainly without 
consulting Dr. Topham. As to the Commissaryship of the 
Dean and Chapter, it was not, as you all know, mine to give 
and I am not accustomed to promise what is not my own. 
Dr. Topham 's affair is not with me but with the chapter in 
which my vote is only one among thirty. 

After a general statement of facts in this tenor — though 
not in these words precisely, for we have only a few phrases 
to go by, — the dean faced Dr. Topham and demanded an 
explanation of his conduct. "Dr. Topham", to quote Sterne's 
attested account of what took place, "at first disowned his 



A GOOD WAKM WATCH-COAT 159 

being the Author of such a Story to the Dean 's Disadvantage ; 
but being pressed by Mr. Sterne, then present, with an 
undeniable Proof, That he, Dr. Topham, did propagate the 
said Story, Dr. Topham did, at last, acknowledge it; adding, 
as his Eeason or Excuse for so doing, That he apprehended 
(or words to that Effect) he had a Promise, under the Dean's 
own Hand, of the Dean and Chapter's Commissary ship." 
The dean then called upon "Dr. Topham to produce the 
Letter in which such pretended Promise was made". Dr. 
Topham replied that he had not brought the letter with him, 
or something like that. Whereupon the dean read to the 
company a letter that Dr. Topham had written to him while 
at Cambridge for his Doctor's degree in June, 1751, request- 
ing the two commissaryships in succession to Dr. Ward. 
Then he took from his pocket and read a copy of his own 
curt reply, dated at Cambridge, July 2, 1751, in which 
the application was ignored or merely alluded to in the 
postscript: "I hope very soon to see you at York." Both 
letters were acknowledged as genuine by the crestfallen 
lawyer. 

Only a little imagination is necessary on the part of the 
reader to construct out of this legal phraseology a hot 
encounter, as Mr. Sterne and the dean one after the other rise 
to their feet, shaking forefinger or fist over Dr. Topham and 
proving him a scoundrel. The way in which they silenced 
their enemy redounds, it must be admitted, not so much to 
their sense of justice as to their skill and adroitness. Three 
years before this, the dean had certainly promised the lawyer 
his own patent and his aid in obtaining the one in the joint 
gift of himself and the chapter. He had simply changed his 
mind. Dr. Topham, publicly set down a liar, kept quiet for 
several years, so far as there is any record of it ; but he was 
only waiting for a good opportunity to return to the attack. 
In the spring of 1757, Archbishop Hutton was appointed 
to the see of Canterbury. His successor at York was Dr. 
John Gilbert, for some years Bishop of Salisbury At best a 
man of mediocre talent and character, the new archbishop 
counted for little in the diocese of York, owing to the many 
physical infirmities that were coming upon him. He Ian- 



160 LAURENCE STERNE 

guished rather than lived at Bishopthorpe. Dr. Topham was 
a frequent visitor at the palace, making it his "Business 
to inquire after every Place and Remedy that might help his 
Grace in his Complaints". When the archbishop was too ill 
to see him, the interviews and correspondence were carried on 
between Dr. Topham and the archbishop's daughter, who 
acted as secretary and adviser to her father in diocesan and 
other matters. On first meeting the new archbishop, Dr. 
Topham told him ' ' That he would find it very difficult, if not 
impossible, to live upon good Terms with his Dean and Chap- 
ter", for they were "A Set of strange People". The arch- 
bishop was however assured by Dr. Topham that it was his 
policy on all questions of dispute to espouse "the Interests 
of the See of York, in Opposition to those of the Deanery". 
The foundations were thus carefully laid for a fresh quarrel, 
which first arose from a trivial incident. 

In September, 1757, the archbishop issued, on the advice 
of Dr. Topham, a mandate for the immediate induction of the 
archbishop's brother into a prebend to which he had been 
appointed. This was an unusual proceeding, inasmuch as a 
delay of three days was customary between the reception of a 
mandate and an induction. But the case was urgent. The 
sick archbishop had just had a serious relapse when for the 
moment his life was despaired of; and should he die before 
the installation of his prebendary, the title, it was pointed 
out, would instantly accrue to the Crown. The chancellor 
of the diocese, after consulting with the residentiaries, decided 
to let the induction take the ordinary course. The dean, 
though he could have known nothing of the incident at the 
time, being absent at Melton, was nevertheless held responsi- 
ble for "the dilatory Capitular Forms and Ceremonies of the 
Church of York". Another point of dispute was over leases. 
Dr. Topham set up the claim that when the archbishop sends 
a lease to the dean and chapter, "the Seal of the Corporation 
ought to be put to it, upon its receiving the Assent and Con- 
sent of a Majority of the Body Corporate", by the general 
proxy which the dean was accustomed to leave with the 
chapter for unimportant matters. On the other hand, it was 
the dean's opinion that the seal ought not to be put to a lease 



A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 161 

without ' ' a special proxy ' ' from himself. Dr. Topham called 
the dean's attention to the statute of the thirty-third year of 
Henry the Eighth against this and other favourite negative 
powers of deans. The dean replied that he had never re- 
garded a special proxy as quite essential in the case of leases, 
but that Dr. Topham had always insisted upon one whenever 
his own interests were involved. 

It was not the intent of Dr. Topham, if we read him 
aright, to force these differences to a breach between the 
dean and the archbishop. He was simply ingratiating him- 
self into special favour at the palace, that the archbishop 
might be kindly disposed to a new and questionable scheme 
on which his heart was now set. Back in 1751 the lawyer 
had been blessed by the birth of a son, that Edward Topham, 
playwright and libertine, who lived to bring into fashion 
short scarlet coats, short white waistcoats, and long leather 
breeches reaching well upwards to the chin, at a time when 
everybody had been wearing very long coats, very long waist- 
coats, but breeches very short in the waist, and thus very 
troublesome to aldermen and all other modest men of con- 
spicuous rotundity. "Through life it was a feather in my 
friend Topham 's cap", said Frederic Reynolds, a brother 
dramatist, "that when a boy, he was the unconscious founder 
of Sterne's literary career."* For his son, already at his 
accidence, the fond father wised to make handsome pro- 
vision. On searching into the records of the dean and chap- 
ter, he discovered that the patent of the Commissary of the 
Exchequer and Prerogative Courts — his best paying office — 
had formerly been granted and enjoyed for two lives instead 
of for one life, as was then the custom. He naturally wished 
a revival of the good old times. So he went to the arch- 
bishop in the summer of 1758, and asked him for permission 
to open his patent of the office, which read for one life only, 
and "to add the Life of another proper Person to it", mean- 
ing thereby, as it quickly transpired, the name of his own son. 

The archbishop at first readily assented to the plan, out 
of gratitude to the lawyer for his many services; but in the 

* The Life and Times of Frederic Reynolds written oy himself, II, 
190 et seq. (London, 1826). 
11 



162 LAUEENCE STERNE 

course of the next few weeks, he began to have doubts about 
the wisdom of the proposal. The transaction could not be 
completed, as Dr. Topham well knew, without the concurrence 
of the dean and chapter, which was, under the circumstances, 
quite difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, despite the arch- 
bishop 's wishes. It is unnecessary to go far into the intrigues 
and flatteries now practised by Dr. Topham to win the friend- 
ship of the men whom he had grossly offended. Very amus- 
ing, indeed, is a letter that he sent over to Melton, by Mr. John 
Clough, registrar of the dean and chapter, to urge the dean, 
as friend and well-wisher, to act favourably in the matter of 
the patent at once before his elevation to a more exalted 
station. "As I have", said the message, "very lately had a 
private Intimation of the Bishop of Winchester having just 
had some very alarming Symptoms, I must expect to be able 
soon to congratulate you on your being added to the Bench 
of Bishops." The dean sent back the following cooling- 
card :* 

"Melton, Aug. 14, 1758. 
"Sir, 

"I received your letter by Mr. Clough, and shall take the 
first opportunity to examine the Registers in our Office relat- 
ing to the Patents of the Commissary, and also to consult my 
Brethren at York, upon the Affair you mention. 

"I flatter myself that the Archbishop will not doubt of 
my Readiness to comply with any Request his Grace may 
make to me, being confident that he would not ask me to lend 
a helping Hand for the depriving his Successors of any of 
their customary Privileges of the Archbishoprick. ' ' 

"I am, Sir, 

"Your most obedient 
"humble Servant, 

"J. FOUNTAYNE." 

That the question might be settled once for all, the dean, 
Dr. Topham, and several others were summoned to meet at 
Bishopthorpe on the seventh of November for a general con- 

* This letter and all details of the sessions dinner are given in An 
Answer to a Letter addressed to the Dean of York in the Name of Dr. 
Topham (York, 1758). 



A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 163 

ference. The two chief dignitaries, who had been mis- 
represented, each to each, by the intriguing lawyer, found 
themselves agreeably of one opinion; that it was inadvisable, 
notwithstanding ancient precedent, to grant the valuable 
patent for more than one life. The lawyer, enraged at this 
decision, says Sterne, "huffed and bounced most terribly", 
threatening everybody from the archbishop down to a timid 
surgeon, one Isaac Newton, who gave the story of the con- 
ference to the coffee-houses. Nothing coming of these angry 
violences, Dr. Topham decided to appeal to the public against 
the dean, whom he charged with working upon the sick man 
at Bishopthorpe. So during the second week in December 
was launched his anonymous pamphlet entitled A LETTER 
Address'd to the Reverend the DEAN of York; In which is 
given A full Detail of some very extraordinary Behaviour of 
his, in relation to his Denial of a Promise made hy him to 
Dr. TOPHAM. Though the sixpenny pamphlet set about to 
deal principally with the commissaryship that fell to Sterne, 
it nevertheless touched upon all the bickerings of a dozen 
years. Two weeks later, the dean had ready his retort 
courteous, which bore the title : An ANSWER To A LETTER 
Address'd to the DEAN of YORK, In the NAME of Dr. 
TOPHAM. A feature of this very skilful reply was a formal 
declaration (from which we have quoted), signed by Laurence 
Sterne and other justices of the peace, as to what took place 
at the Sessions Dinner at Mr. Woodhouse's. Had he desired, 
the .Vicar of Sutton could not well have kept out of the con- 
troversy, for, as Dr. Topham had put it, Sterne's appoint- 
ment to the courts of Pickering and Poeklington first brought 
the quarrel to a head. In concluding his open letter, the 
dean announced that he had taken leave of Dr. Topham 
"once for all". Thus apparently sure of the last word, the 
lawyer poured forth the phials of his wrath in A REPLY 
TO THE ANSWER TO A LETTER Lately addressedHo the 
DEAN OF YORK. With considerable humour "a late 
notable Performance", supposed to be the dean's, was 
described as "the Child and Offspring of many Parents". 
Mr. Sterne and some others, it was intimated, had been called 



154 LAURENCE STERNE 

in by the dean for "Correcting, Revising, Ornamenting, and 
Embellishing" his well-known faint and nerveless style. 

The attestation and a phrase here and there in the dean's 
pamphlet were without doubt Sterne's; but they count for 
nothing in comparison with what Sterne now did. In his 
retreat at Sutton he had been at work during the last week 
on his own reply to Dr. Topham. Late in January, 1759, 
just after Dr. Topham 's second pamphlet reached the coffee- 
houses, Sterne had printed, ready for distribution, A Political 

Romance, Addressed TO , Esq; OF YORK. To 

which is subjoined a KEY: — better known among the hu- 
mourist's works as A History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat. 
As indicative of his aim, which was ridicule rather than 
satire or controversy, the title-page bore the motto from 
Horace : 

"Ridiculum acri 
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat Res." 

The first edition of the Political Romance is so exceeding 
rare that all who have written on Sterne have doubted its 
being printed during the author's life-time. It was laid by 
in Sterne's desk, say Mr. Percy Fitzgerald and Mr. Sidney 
Lee, and at most circulated only in manuscript. This, we 
now know, was not the case. A copy strayed up to London, 
where it was reprinted in part in 1769, the year after Sterne's 
death, by a bookseller in the Strand. The obscure printer 
corrected the humourist's English, substituting elegant 
phrases for quaint and homely idioms, and cut away the 
Key and two long letters that go with it — in all, just one 
half of the romance as originally written and published at 
York early in 1759. It is this mutilated version only that 
has been known to readers and biographers of Sterne. For- 
tunately, however, a copy of the first edition found its way, 
a half century or more ago, into the splendid collection of 
Edward Hailstone, Esq., of Horton Hall, Bradford, England, 
who lent it to Robert Davies, the antiquary, while preparing 
his Memoir of the York Press (1868). On the death of 
Mr. Hailstone in 1890, it passed with many valuable books 
and manuscripts to the library of the dean and chapter at 
York, where it was uncovered in September, 1905. A few 



A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 165 

weeks afterwards another copy was found in a volume of 
pamphlets at the York Subscription Library. Still another 
copy, bound with the previous tracts in the controversy, has 
long rested, it now turns out, in the library of Trinity College, 
Cambridge. No other copies are known to exist. 

Sterne cast his narrative into the form of an allegory, 
which becomes easy and delectable when we know the inci- 
dents underlying it. To the end that seeming great things 
might appear as small as they really were, the diocese of 
York was cut down to a country parish, and the archbishop 
thereby reduced to the rank of a village parson. The dean, 
shorn of his surname, became merely John the parish clerk; 
and the cathedral chapter figured as the church wardens. 
Incidentally Mark Braithwaite appeared as Mark Slender, 
and William Stables as William Doe. Dr. Topham, renamed 
Trim, because he received so thorough a trimming at the last, 
was degraded to sexton and dog-whipper of the parish; and 
Sterne himself was slightly disguised under the name of 
Lorry Slim. 

The late parson and John the parish clerk, says the tale, 
had just got snugly settled in the parish, when Trim "put it 
into the Parson's Head, 'That John's Desk in the Church 

was, at the least, four Inches higher than it should be : 

That the Thing gave Offence, and was indecorous, inasmuch 
as it approach 'd too near upon a Level with the Parson's 
Desk itself. ' This Hardship the Parson complained of loudly, 

and told John one Day after Prayers, 'He could bear 

it no longer: And would have it alter 'd and brought 

down as it should be.' John made no other Reply, but, 

'That the Desk was not of his raising: That 'twas not 

one Hair Breadth higher than he found it; and that as 

he found it, so would he leave it.' " 

This stiff dispute, shadowing forth in allegory the quarrel 
between Archbishop Hutton and Dr. Fountayne over the key 
to the cathedral pulpit, was "Trim's harvest". For a few 
days later John saw Trim emerging from the vicarage and 
1 ' strutting across the Church-yard, y 'clad in a good creditable 
cast Coat, large Hat and Wig, which the Parson had just 
given him. 'Ho! Ho! Hollo! John! 9 cries Trim, in an 



166 LAUEENCE STEENE 

insolent Bravo, as loud as ever he could bawl 'See here, 

my Lad! how fine I am.' 'The more Shame for you,' 

answered John, seriously. — 'Do you think, Trim/ says he, 
'such Finery, gain'd by such Services, becomes you, or can 
wear well?' " 

This was Sterne's way of saying that Dr. Topham had 
secured the patent of the Prerogative Courts of York. 

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles" to deck himself 
out with, Trim had also been trying for some time to coax 
from John a pair of black plush breeches "not much the 
worse for wearing". He "begged for God's Sake to have 
them bestowed upon him when John should think fit to cast 
them". John told him that he ought to be ashamed of him- 
self for creating such a racket in the village about "an old- 
worn-out-Pair-of -cast-Breeches, not worth Half a Crown". 
"In the first Place", said he in allusion to Dr. Topham 's 
many comfortable places, "are you not Sexton and Dog- 

Whipper, worth Three Pounds a Year? Then you begg'd 

the Church-Wardens to let your Wife have the Washing and 
Darning of the Surplice and Church-Linen, which brings 

you in Thirteen Shillings and Four pence. Then you have 

Six Shillings and Eight Pence for oiling and winding up the 

Clock, both paid you at Easter. The Pindar's Place which 

is worth Forty- Shillings a Year, you have got that too. 

You are the Bailiff, which the late Parson got you, which 

brings you in Forty Shillings more. Besides all this, you 

have Six Pounds a Year, paid you Quarterly for being Mole- 
Catcher to the Parish." 

The cast-breeches — Pickering and Pocklington — after cov- 
ering the thin legs of Mark Slender for a time, eventually 
fell to "Lorry Slim, an unlucky Wight, by whom they are 

still worn ; in Truth, as you will guess, they are very thin 

by this Time; — But Lorry has a light Heart; and what 
recommends them to him is this, that, as thin as they are, he 
knows that Trim, let him say what he will to the contrary, 

still envies the Possessor of them, and with all his Pride, 

would be very glad to wear them after him." 

Though Trim had thus missed the plush breeches, he yet 
"had an Eye to, and firmly expected in his own Mind, the 



A GOOD WAEM WATCH-COAT 167 

great Green Pulpit- Cloth and old Velvet Cushion [the Com- 
missary ship of the Dean and Chapter], which were that very 

Year to be taken down ; which, by the Bye, could he have 

wheedled John a second time out of 'em, as he hoped, he had 
made up the Loss of his Breeches Seven-fold. Now, you must 
know, this Pulpit-Cloth and Cushion were not in John's Gift, 

but in the Church- Wardens, &c. However, as I said 

above, that John was a leading Man in the Parish, Trim 

knew he could help him to them if he would: But John 

had got a Surfeit of him; so, when the Pulpit-Cloth, &c. 

were taken down, they were immediately given (John having 
a great Say in it) to William Doe, who understood very well 
what Use to make of them." 

After the old garments and worn pulpit decorations had 
been thus divided up — William Doe, Trim, and Lorry Slim 
each getting one or more pieces, — the parish fell back into its 
usual monotonous drone for some ten years, and would have 
droned on forever, had not the old parson left his flock for a 
better living and his place been supplied by a new incumbent, 
that is, by Dr. Gilbert. Then was struck up a lively tune. 
Trim at once hastened to the rectory, that is, to Bishopthorpe, 
to sell himself into servitude. Within a year, "he had", it 
was his boast, " black 'd the Parson's Shoes without Count, 
and greased his Boots above fifty Times; * * * he had run 

for Eggs into the Town upon all Occasions; whetted the 

Knives at all Hours: catched his Horse and rubbed him 

down, * * * never came to the House, but ask'd his Man 
kindly how he did. * * * When his Keverence cut his finger 
in paring an Apple, he went half a Mile to ask a cunning 
Woman, what was good to stanch Blood, and actually 
returned with a Cobweb in his breeches Pocket." 

For these services Trim demanded nothing but "an old 
watch-coat that had hung up many years in the church", 
apparently of use to nobody. But Trim had set his heart 
upon it, humbly asking for it: "Nothing would serve Trim 
but he must take it home, in order to have it converted into 
a warm Under-Petticoat for his Wife, and a Jerkin for him- 
self, against Winter; which, in a plaintive Tone, he most 
humbly begg'd his Reverence would consent to. * * * No 



168 LAURENCE STERNE 

sooner did the distinct "Words Petticoat poor Wife 

warm Winter strike upon his [the parson's] Ear, — but 

his Heart warmed, and, before Trim had well got to the End of 
his Petition, (being a Gentleman of a frank and open Tem- 
per) he told him he was welcome to it, with all his Heart and 
Soul. 'But, Trim', says he, 'as you see I am but just got 
down to my Living, and am an utter Stranger to all Parish- 
Matters * * * and therefore cannot be a Judge whether 'tis 
fit for such a Purpose; or, if it is, in Truth, know not 

whether 'tis mine to bestow upon you or not; you must 

have a Week or ten Days Patience, till I can make some 

Inquiries about it ; and, if I find it is in my Power, I tell 

you again, Man, your Wife is heartily welcome to an Under- 
Petticoat out of it, and you to a Jerkin, was the Thing as good 
again as you represent it.' " 

Several days after this conversation, the parson, while 
turning the leaves of the parish registry in his study, came 
upon a memorandum about the watch-coat that opened his 
eyes as to its dignity and value. "The great Watch-Coat", 
he discovered, "was purchased and given above two hundred 
years ago, by the Lord of the Manor, to this Parish-Church, 
to the sole Use and Behoof of the poor Sextons thereof, and 
their Successors, for ever, to be worn by them respectively 
in winterly cold Nights, in ringing Complines, Passing-Bells, 
&c which the said Lord of the Manor had done in Piety, to 
keep the poor Wretches warm, and for the Good of his own 
Soul, for which they were directed to pray, &c &c &c. l Just 
Heaven!' said the Parson to himself, looking upwards, 'What 
an Escape have I had! Give this for an Under-Petticoat to 
Trim's Wife! I would not have consented to such a Dese- 
cration to be Primate of all England ; nay, I would not have 
disturb' d a single Button of it for half my Tythes!' 

"Scarce were the Words out of his Mouth, when in pops 
Trim with the whole Subject of the Exclamation under both 

his Arms. 1 say, under both his Arms; — for he had 

actually got it ripp 'd and cut out ready, his own Jerkin under 
one Arm, and the Petticoat under the other, in order to be 
carried to the Taylor to be made up, — and had just stepp'd 
in, in high Spirits, to shew the Parson how cleverly it had 



A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 169 

held out. ' ' The parson, enraged at Trim 's impudence, ordered 
him "in a stern Voice, to lay the Bundles down upon the 

Table, to go about his Business, and wait upon him, at his 

Peril, the next Morning at Eleven precisely: Against this 
Hour like a wise Man, the Parson had sent to desire John the 
Parish-Clerk, who bore an exceeding good Character as a 
Man of Truth. * * * Him he sends for, with the Church- 
Wardens, and one of the Sides-Men, a grave, knowing, old 

Man, to be present : For as Trim had with-held the whole 

Truth from the Parson, touching the Watch-Coat, he thought 
it probable he would as certainly do the same Thing to 
others". The next morning at eleven, passions ran high at 
the rectory. Trim pleaded the Parson's promise, and, failing 
there, enumerated his humble services as the parson's man. 
But all in vain. The "pimping, pettifogging, ambidextrous 
Fellow * * * was kick 'd out of Doors ; and told, at his Peril, 
never to come there again". 

To the allegory which thus relates how Dr. Topham finally 
met with signal disaster at Bishopthorpe, in his attempt to 
cut up and make over for his son the patent of the Preroga- 
tive Courts of York, Sterne subjoined an amusing postscript 
on the numerous hands, including his own, that the church- 
lawyer uncovered in the dean's pamphlet. They were all, 
said Sterne, as imaginary as the nineteen men in buckram 
with whom Jack Falstaff fought at Gad's Hill. Then came 
a gay tail-piece, which the printer wished to put on the title- 
page, representing two game cocks, in full trim, beak to beak, 
ready to strike. 

Not able to stop here, though the story was really over, 
Sterne appended to his allegory a humorous Key and two 
letters, which cover, in the whole, as many pages as the entire 
previous narrative. The Key, it might be observed, was 
developed from Swift's "Grand Committee" that sat upon 
the meaning of A Tale of a Tub. Since this part of the 
romance, as aforesaid, has been seen by few men, and by 
none of Sterne's biographers, it may be quite worth while to 
give some account of it, if for no other reason than this. 
But the continuation brings with it, as will be apparent at 
once, some interesting facts about its author. 



170 LAURENCE STERNE 

"This Romance", says the Key, which is of course no key, 
"was, by some Mischance or other, dropp'd in the Minster- 
Yard, York, and pick'd up by a Member of a small Political 
Club in that City; where it was carried, and publickly read 
to the Members the last Club Night. 

1 ' It was instantly agreed to, by a great Majority, That it 
was a Political Romance; but concerning what State or Poten- 
tate, could not so easily be settled amongst them. 

' ' The President of the Night, who is thought to be as clear 
and quick-sighted as any one of the whole Club in Things 
of this Nature, discovered plainly, That the Disturbances 

therein set forth, related to those on the Continent: That 

Trim could be Nobody but the King of France, by whose 
shifting and intriguing Behaviour, all Europe was set to- 
gether by the Ears: That Trim's Wife was certainly the 

Empress, who are as kind together, says he, as any Man and 

Wife can be for their Lives. The more Shame for 'em, 

says an Alderman, low to himself. Agreeable to this Key, 

continues the President, — The Parson, who I think is a 

most excellent Character, is His Most Excellent Majesty 

King George; John, the Parish-Clerk, is the King of 

Prussia; who, by the Manner of his first entering Saxony, 

shew'd the World most evidently, That he did know how 

to lead out the Psalm, and in Tune and Time too, notwith- 
standing Trim's vile Insult upon him m that Particular. * * * 
The Old-cast-Pair-of -Black-Plush-Breeches must be Saxony, 

which the Elector, you see, has left off wearing: And as 

for the Great Watch-Coat, which, you know, covers all, it 
signifies all Europe; comprehending, at least, so many of its 
different States and Dominions, as we have any Concern with 
in the present War. 

"I protest, says a Gentleman who sat next but one to the 
President, and who, it seems, was the Parson of the Parish, 
a Member not only of the Political, but also of a Musical 
Club in the next Street ; 1 protest, says he, if this explana- 
tion is right, which I think it is, — That the whole makes a 
very fine Symbol. You have always some Musical Instru- 
ment or other in your Head, I think, says the Alderman. 

Musical Instrument ! replies the Parson, in Astonishment, 



A GOOD WAEM WATCH-COAT 171 

Mr. Alderman, I mean an Allegory; and I think the greedy 
Disposition of Trim and his Wife, in ripping the Great 
Watch-Coat, to Pieces in order to convert it into a Petticoat 
for the one, and a Jerkin for the other, is one of the most 
beautiful of the Kind I ever met with; and will shew all the 
World what have been the true Views and Intentions of the 
Houses of Bourbon and Austria in this abominable Coalition." 
This hypothesis of the president, so ably supported by 
the parson, met at first with a good deal of favour; but 
before the evening was far advanced, one hardheaded mem- 
ber after another began to ask questions, and then to suggest 
other explanations of the Romance until the president was 
made to tremble for his own hypothesis. ' ' Every Man turn 'd 

the Story to what was swimming uppermost in his Brain ; 

so that, before all was over, there were full as many Satyres 

spun out of it, and as great a Variety of Personages, 

Opinions, Transactions, and Truths, found to lay hid under 
the dark Veil of its Allegory, as ever were discovered in the 
thrice-renowned History of the Acts of Gargantua and 
Pantagruel." 

A gentleman at the opposite side of the table, who knew 
nothing of the flirtations between France and Austria, but 
"had come piping-hot from reading the History of King 
William's and Queen Anne's Wars, * * * acquainted them, 
That the dividing the Great Watch-Coat did, and could 
allude to nothing else in the World but the Partition Treaty ; 
which, by the Bye, he told them, was the most unhappy and 
scandalous Transaction in all King William's Life: It was 
that false Step, and that only, says he, rising from his Chair, 
and striking his Hand upon the Table with great Violence ; 
it was that false Step, says he knitting his Brows and throw- 
ing his Pipe down upon the Ground, that has laid the Founda- 
tion of all the Disturbances and Sorrows we feel and lament 
at this very Hour." 

The debate, after many a wild-goose chase, was concluded 
by a gentleman of the law who had been sitting quietly by 

the fire. "He got up, and, advancing towards the Table, 

told them, That the Error they had all gone upon thus far, 
in making out the several Facts in the Romance, was in 



172 LAURENCE STERNE 

looking too high. * * * He then took the Romance in his 
Left Hand, and pointing with the Fore-Finger of his Right 
towards the second Page, he humbly begg'd Leave to observe, 
(and, to do him Justice, he did it in somewhat of a forensic 
Air) That the Parson, John, and Sexton, shewed incontestably 
the Thing to be Tripartite; now, if you will take Notice, 
Gentlemen, says he, these several Persons, who are Parties 
to this Instrument, are merely Ecclesiastical. * * * It ap- 
pears very plain to me, That the Romance, neither directly 
nor indirectly, goes upon Temporal, but altogether upon 

Church-Matters. And do not you think, says he, softening 

his Voice a little, and addressing himself to the Parson with 

a forced Smile, Do not you think Doctor, says he, That 

the Dispute in the Romance between the Parson of the Parish 
and John, about the Height of John's Desk, is a very fine 
Panegyrick upon the Humility of Church-MenV 

The parson, nettled by this insult to the cloth, made a 
repartee on "the glorious Prolixity of the Law", which 
"highly tickled" an apothecary in the company, "who had 
paid the Attorney, the same Afternoon, a Demand of Three 
Pounds Six Shillings and Eight-Pence" for a lease and 

release. "He rubb'd his Hands together most fervently, 

and laugh 'd most triumphantly" at the parson's clever hit. 
The lawyer, understanding the real cause of the apothecary's 
jocular humour, turned to him, and "dropping his Voice a 
Third" said: 

"You might well have spared this immoderate Mirth, 
since you and your Profession have the least Reason to 

triumph here of any of us. 1 beg, quoth he, that you would 

reflect a Moment upon the Cob -Web which Trim went so far 
for, and brought back with an Air of so much Importance 
in his Breeches Pocket, to lay upon the Parson's cut Finger. 

This said Cob-Web, Sir, is a fine-spun Satyre, upon the 

flimsy Nature of one Half of the Shop-Medicines, with which 
you make a Property of the Sick, the Ignorant, and the 
Unsuspecting. ' ' 

Stung by this discourteous retort, the apothecary, a sur- 
geon, a chemist, an undertaker, and another apothecary, 
"were all five rising up together from their Chairs, with full 



A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 173 

Intent of Heart, as it was thought, to return the Reproof 

Valiant thereupon. But the President, fearing it would 

end in a general Engagement, he instantly call'd out, To 
Order" ; and thus saved a squabble. As soon as quiet was 
restored, it was ordered that the Romance and the minutes of 
the meeting likewise, as a key to the allegory, be printed at 
once and under one cover. A whitesmith, who had remained 
silent up to this time, objected to the publication of the Key 
on the ground that it was not one Key but "a whole Bunch 
of Keys". "Let me tell you, Mr. President, says he, That 
the Right Key, if it could but be found, would be worth the 
whole Bunch put together." 

The key that the whitesmith longed for has been placed 
in the reader's hand bright and clean; but the key to the 
Key, so to speak, though it may be recovered, is now eaten 
out by the rust of time. The transactions of the "political 
club" by the Minster Yard, were, so far as we may surely go, 
a burlesque of the evenings Sterne passed with his convivial 
club that met at Sunton's Coffee-House in Coney Street. 
Under the disguise of a surgeon, lawyer, apothecary, under- 
taker, and the president who loved an hypothesis better than 
his life, he drew little portraits of the members — their man- 
nerisms and favourite gestures, and their vehemence in 
canvassing local and larger politics of the day. What kind 
of men they were further than this or what names they bore 
— we may never know, except, to be sure, that the Vicar of 
Sutton is among them. He is the parson of the parish, smart 
in repartee and ready to defend by a counter- jest an attack 
upon the cloth that he wears, just as was related in the old 
story of the puppy. There is, besides, that apt reference to 
Kabelais, which shows what was running in Sterne's head; 
and finally the gentleman who, like my uncle Toby, spent 
his days and nights in reading of the wars of King William 
and Queen Anne. 

According to the fiction which the author adopted, the ro- 
mance was read to the club and then sent to the printer. The 
fiction, more likely than not, is the truth. Sterne may have 
read the pamphlet to this company of friends, and then placed 
the manuscript in the hands of one of them to watch it safely 



174 LAURENCE STERNE 

through the press of Caesar Ward, editor and publisher of 
the York Courant, whose shop was nearby in the same street. 
To a real or imaginary gentleman of York, who was to look 
after the printing, Sterne sent in from Sutton precise direc- 
tions, which were made a part of the pamphlet, following 
next after the Key. The letter, which runs thus, is a curious 
piece of humour: 

"Sir, 

"You write me Word that the Letter I wrote to you, and 
now stiled The Political Romance is printing; and that, as it 
was drop'd by Carelessness, to make some Amends, you will 
overlook the Printing of it yourself, and take Care to see that 
it comes right into the World. 

"I was just going to return you Thanks, and to beg, 
withal, you would take Care That the Child be not laid at 

my Door. But having, this Moment, perused the Reply to 

the Dean of York's Answer, it has made me alter my 

Mind in that respect ; so that, instead of making you the 
Request I intended, I do here desire That the Child be filiated 
upon me, Laurence Sterne, Prebendary of York, &c. &c. 
And I do, accordingly, own it for my own true and lawful 
Offspring. 

' ' My Reason for this is plain ; for as, you see, the 

Writer of that Reply, has taken upon him to invade this 
incontested Right of another Man's in a Thing of this Kind, 

it is high Time for every Man to look to his own Since, 

upon the same Grounds, and with half the Degree of Anger, 
that he affirms the Production of that very Reverend Gentle- 
man's to be the Child of many Fathers, some one in his 
Spight (for I am not without my Friends of that Stamp) 
may run headlong into the other Extream, and swear, That 

mine had no Father at all : And therefore, to make use of 

Bay's Plea in the Rehearsal, for Prince Pretty-Man; I merely 
do it, as he says, 'for fear it should be said to be no Body's 
Child at all.' 

"I have only to add two Things: First, That, at your 

Peril, you do not presume to alter or transpose one Word, nor 
rectify one false Spelling, nor so much as add or diminish 



A GOOD WAEM WATCH-COAT 175 

one Comma or Tittle, in or to my Romance: For if you do, 

In case any of the Descendents of Curl should think fit 

to invade my Copy-Right, and print it over again in my 
Teeth, I may not be able, in a Court of Justice, to swear 
strictly to my own Child, after you had so large a Share in 
the begetting it. 

"In the next Place, I do not approve of your quaint Con- 
ceit at the Foot of the Title Page of my Romance. It 

would only set People on smiling a Page or two before I give 

them Leave; and besides, all Attempts either at Wit or 

Humour, in that Place, are a Forestalling of what slender 
Entertainment of those Kinds are prepared within: There- 
fore I would have it stand thus: 

"YORK: 
"Printed in the Year 1759. 



i i 



(Price One Shilling.) 



"I know you will tell me, That it is set too high; and as 
a Proof, you will say, That this last Reply to the Dean's 
Answer does consist of near as many Pages as mine ; and yet 

is all sold for Six-pence. But mine, my dear Friend, is 

quite a different Story: It is a Web wrought out of my 

own Brain, of twice the Fineness of this which he has spun 
out of his; and besides, I maintain it, it is of a more curious 
Pattern, and could not be afforded at the Price that his is 
sold at, by any honest Workman in Great-Britain. 

"Moreover, Sir, you do not consider, That the writer is 
interested in his Story, and that it is his Business to set it 
a-going at any Price: And indeed, from the Information of 
Persons conversant in Paper and Print, I have very good 
Reason to believe, if he should sell every Pamphlet of them, 
he would inevitably be a Great Loser by it. This I believe 
verily, and am, 

"Dear Sir, 

"Your obliged Friend 
' ' Sutton on the Forest, " and humble Servant, 

Jan. 20, 1759. "LAURENCE STERNE." 

Having thus thrown off the mask of anonymity already 



176 LAURENCE STERNE 

worn thin, Sterne closed the whole performance with a signed 
letter to Dr. Topham, bearing the same date as the one just 
quoted. The lawyer, in his last pamphlet, had questioned 
the accuracy of Sterne's memory about the Sessions Dinner, 
and hinted that the Vicar of Sutton had had a good deal to 
do with the dean's previous pamphlet, as if Dr. Fountayne, 
without the aid of friends, were not quite equal to a con- 
troversy. Sterne took up in detail these and other points, 
assuring Dr. Topham that he had nothing to do with the 
dean's Answer beyond the attestation which he signed with 
others, and that his memory was still good. "As for the 
many coarse and unchristian Insinuations", said Sterne to 

Dr. Topham, " scatter 'd throughout your Reply, as it is 

my Duty to beg God to forgive you, so I do from my Heart : 
Believe me, Dr. Topham, they hurt yourself more than the 
Person they are aimed at; And when the first Transport of 
Eage is a little over, they will grieve you more too. And 

for the little that remains unanswered in yours, 1 believe 

I could, in another half Hour, set it right in the Eyes of the 

World: But this is not my Business. And if it is 

thought worth the while, which I hope it never will, I know 
no one more able to do it than the very Reverend and Worthy 
Gentleman whom you have so unhandsomely insulted upon 
that Score." 

After this pretty compliment to the dean, Sterne added a 
postscript, which is, in conventional phrase, the best part of 
the letter: 

"I beg Pardon for clapping this upon the Back of the 

Romance, which is done out of no Disrespect to you. 

But the Vehicle stood ready at the Door, and as I was to 

pay the whole Fare, and there was Room enough behind it, 

it was the cheapest and readiest Conveyance I could 

think of." 

At the end of all came the archangel Gabriel, as an appro- 
priate design, resting upon a bank of clouds and blowing 
the last trumpet. 

"Above five hundred copies" of the pamphlet, it was 
said, "were struck off"; and "what all the serious arguments 
in the world could not effect, this brought about." At once 



A GOOD WARM WATCH-COAT 177 

Sterne had at his feet both friends and enemies, begging that 
the Romance be suppressed. Dr. Topham sent word that he 
was ready, on this condition, to "quit his pretensions". 
Certain members of the York chapter told Sterne that this 
humorous recital of their disputes would never do. The 
archbishop and the dean were, to say truth, each hand- 
somely complimented by the way; but the laugh was, after 
all, on them as well as on Dr. Topham ; the publication, from 
any point of view was, they thought, offensive to the dignity 
of the Church. Sterne heeded the advice of his brethren. 
With his assent an official of the cathedral bought up the 
copies remaining in the book-stalls, and burned them with 
those still at the printer's. That was the current story 
thirty years after. But several copies must have been sold 
beyond recovery; and Sterne himself managed in some way 
to keep from the flames "three or four" other copies which 
he guarded for the delight of his friends.* 

* For statements in this paragraph, see Whitefoord Papers, 229 ; 
London Chronicle, May 3-6, 1760. 



12 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE PUBLICATION OF TRISTRAM SHANDY- 
VOLUMES I AND II 
JANUAEY 1759— MAY 1760 

The burning of the Political Romance was a dramatic 
incident that "contributed", according to the newspapers of 
the next year, "more to raise the reputation of Parson 
Yorick, than any thing he could have published. * * * Ten 
times more was said about this piece than it deserved, because 
it was burnt; and the general voice, which never reports 
without exaggeration, * * * cried it up as one of the most 
perfect and excellent things human invention ever had pro- 
duced". To Sterne the miscarriage of his first literary effort 
was a keen disappointment, for "till he had finished his 
Watchcoat, he hardly knew that he could write at all, much 
less with humour so as to make his reader laugh". Having 
once discovered his talent, the country parson, then in his 
forty-sixth year, gave himself up to the exercise and delight 
of it for the rest of his life. Tristram Shandy was begun — so 
the book itself says by indication — late in January, 1759, im- 
mediately after the mishap to the Political Romance. Sterne 
wrote as fast as he "possibly could", reaching the eighteenth 
chapter by the ninth of March, six weeks and some odd days 
after first setting out. By the twenty-sixth of the same month, 
he was well on in the twenty-first chapter; and by June, the 
first draft of two volumes was completed. His genius bore 
him on so easily and rapidly through the later stages that he 
felt it was in him to write two more volumes every year so 
long as he should live. 

There were however times of doubt and depression. To 
say truth, Tristram Shandy came near going the way of the 
Political Romance. While the book was in making, Sterne 
took some of the loose sheets over to Stillington Hall, where 

178 



PUBLICATION OF TRISTEAM SHANDY 179 

he read them to Stephen Croft and a group of friends brought 
together for the" purpose after dinner. Some of the company 
"fell asleep", said the brother of the squire, "at which 
Sterne was so nettled that he threw the Manuscript into the 
fire, and had not luckily Mr. Croft rescued the scorched 
papers from the flames, the work wou'd have been consigned 
to oblivion". As soon as the copy was fully written out, 
Sterne consulted various friends at York about it. One of 
them, who may stand for several, said: "I took the Liberty 
to point out some gross Allusions which I apprehended would 
be Matter of just Offense, and especially when coming from 
a Clergyman, as they would betray a Forgetfulness of his 
Character." In reply Sterne "observed, that an Attention 
to his Character would damp his Fire and check the Flow of 
his Humour, and that if he went on, and hoped to be read, 
he must not look at his Band or his Cassock". Marmaduke 
Fothergill of York, the younger of that name, whom Sterne 
described as "my best of critics and well-wishers", kept 
iterating : ' ' Get your preferment first, Lorry, and then write 
and welcome." "But suppose", replied Sterne, "prefer- 
ment is long 'coming and, for aught I know, I may not 

be preferred till the resurrection of the just and am all 

that time in labour, how must I bear my pains." Against 
the cautions of another he cited the name of a great predeces- 
sor, saying: I * * * deny I have gone as far as Swift: he 
keeps a due distance from Rabelais; I keep a due distance 
from him. Swift has said five hundred things I durst not 
say, unless I was Dean of St. Patricks." Finally, to ease 
his "mind of all trouble upon the topic of discretion", Sterne 
decided to appeal to Archbishop Gilbert, should his Grace 
come down to York in the autumn. Whether or not the arch- 
bishop read and approved, the author does not say. 

When the book was ready for the press, as Sterne thought, 
in June, he offered it to the local booksellers; but "they 
wou'd not have anything to say to it, nor wou'd they offer 
any price for it". He then tried the Dodsleys, the great 
London publishers in Pall Mall. From the correspondence, 
of which only one letter is extant, it appears that in June 
Sterne wrote to one of the Dodsleys, Robert it would seem, 



180 LAURENCE STERNE 

offering him Tristram Shandy for fifty pounds. Dodsley 
wrote back "that it was too much to risk on a single volume, 
which if it did not sell, would be hard upon his brother". 
By this time Sterne was beginning to heed the strictures that 
were passed upon his manuscript. Besides the caution of his 
clerical brethren that he should consider the solemn colour 
of his coat, to which a meditation upon death would be "a 
more suitable trimming", some objections were made to his 
aim and style. "To sport too much with your wit, or the 
game that wit has pointed out", a nameless friend remarked 
to him, "is surfeiting; like toying with a man's mistress, it 
may be very delightful solacement to the inamorata, but little 
to the by-stander". Though Sterne said in reply, "I have 
burnt more wit than I have published," he nevertheless 
promised to avoid the fault that was pointed out to him, so 
far as he could without spoiling his book. To the same 
critic, the mischance that befell Dr. Slop while approaching 
Shandy Hall on a dark night seemed too minutely described. 
Sterne defended himself by an appeal to the manner of 
Cervantes, but finally brought himself to admit: "Perhaps 
this is overloaded, and I can ease it." All who saw the 
manuscript knew of course that Dr. Slop was a satire upon 
Dr. John Burton; and there are indications that several did 
not approve of the attack. As a result of these criticisms, 
Sterne carefully revised his manuscript during the summer, 
pruning and grafting. In June he had enough material, 
said one who claims to have passed a whole night with him 
over his papers, to fill "four volumes", instead of the two 
that were eventually published. 

Besides cutting away many passages — a half may be an 
exaggeration — Sterne added, according to his own account, 
"about a hundred and fifty pages", and took "all locality" 
out of the book; that is, he removed here and there a sting 
from the local satire. Thus amended, Tristram Shandy met 
with great favour. By October, "a strong interest [was] 
formed and forming in its behalf"; and the next month 
rumour among his friends as far away as London, had it that 
Mr. Sterne was "busy writing an extraordinary book". 
Among the gentlemen at York who liked Tristram Shandy 



PUBLICATION OF TKISTRAM SHANDY 181 

because it made them laugh, was "a bachelor of a liberal turn 
of mind ' ' named Lee, who came forward early in the autumn 
and promised Sterne "one hundred pounds towards the 
printing". Fortified by this substantial sum, Sterne sub- 
mitted new proposals to Dodsley, asking for his aid in placing 
Tristram Shandy before the public. The letter to Dodsley, 
bearing no date but belonging to October or thereabouts, 
runs in part as follows: 

"I propose * * * to print a lean edition, in two small 
volumes, of the size of Rasselas, and on the same paper and 
type, at my own expense, merely to feel the pulse of the 
world, and that I may know what price to set upon the 
remaining volumes, from the reception of these. If my book 
sells and has the run our critics expect, I propose to free 
myself of all future troubles of this kind, and bargain with 
you, if possible, for the rest as they come out, which will be 
every six months. If my book fails of success, the loss falls 
where it ought to do. The same motives which inclined me 
first to offer you this trifle, incline me to give you the whole 
profits of the sale (except what Mr. Hinxman [John Hinx- 
man, a York bookseller] sells here, which will be a great 
many), and to have them sold only at your shop, upon the 
usual terms in these cases. The book shall be printed here, 
and the impression sent up to you ; for as I live at York, and 
shall correct every proof myself, it shall go perfect into the 
world, and be printed in so creditable a way as to paper, 
type, &c, as to do no dishonour to you, who, I know, never 
chuse to print a book meanly. Will you patronize my book 
upon these terms, and be as kind a friend to it as if you had 
bought the copyright?" 

In a postscript Sterne added at the end: "I had desired 
Mr. Hinxman to write the purport of this to you by this post, 
but least he should omit it, or not sufficiently explain my 
intention, I thought best to trouble you with a letter myself. ' ' 

The arrangements for publication outlined in this letter 
were afterwards somewhat modified, but just how can not be 
determined beyond doubt, inasmuch as the succeeding cor- 
respondence between Sterne, Hinxman, and Dodsley is irre- 
trievably lost. According to John Croft, Dodsley now 



182 LAURENCE STERNE 

offered Sterne forty pounds for the copyright* on conditions 
which the author was unwilling to accept. Be that as it may, 
by December, 1759, Sterne's perplexities over his book were 
at an end, and he was anxiously awaiting his fame. In its 
issue of January 1, 1760, the London Chronicle had the fol- 
lowing announcement: 

This Day was published, 
Printed on a superfine Writing Paper, and a new 
Letter, in two Volumes, Price 5s. neatly bound, 

The LIFE and OPINIONS of 
TRISTRAM SHANDY, Gent. 

York, printed for and sold by John Hinxman 
(Successor to the late Mr. Hildyard) Bookseller in 
Stonegate : J. Dodsley in Pallmall and M. Cooper in 
Pater-noster-row, London : and by all the Booksellers. 

Whether this first instalment of Tristram Shandy was 
really printed at York or at London is a question in dispute 
among bibliographers. Sterne's design, as may be seen from 
the letter to Dodsley in October, was to place his book in the 
hands of a local printer, most likely Ann Ward, widow and 
successor of Caesar Ward, at the Sign of the Bible in Coney 
Street, "with whose neat and accurate typography", says 
Eobert Davies, the antiquary, "the author was well ac- 
quainted". John Croft, in agreement with others, who ought 
to have known, also says that the first edition, running to 
"about two hundred copies", was "first printed at York", 
and adds that Sterne sent a set of them up to Dodsley, who 
"returned for an answer that they were not saleable". 
Against these assertions the bibliographical evidence is nearly 
if not quite conclusive. All copies of the first edition in two 
volumes (so far as they have been inspected by the present 
writer or described by others at first hand) contain on the 
title-page the title: "The Life and Opinions of Tristram 

* Neither this nor later instalments of Tristram Shandy were entered 
at Stationers' Hall, though we find Sterne subsequently disposing of 
his copyrights. 



' PUBLICATION OF TEISTRAM SHANDY 183 

Shandy, Gentleman," a Greek quotation from the Encheiri- 
dion* of Epictetus, the number of the volume, and the date 
"1760". There is nothing more; no place of issue, no name 
of publisher, no name of author. It is the same for all copies 
extant, so far as they are known : for those now in accessible 
private collections and for the copy — presumably an advance 
copy — which Sterne presented to his physician, Dr. John 
Dealtry of York.f The notion which still half obtains that 
there was an earlier private edition of Tristram Shandy, per- 
haps bearing on the title-page "York, 1759", is erroneous. 
The paper and the typography of the first edition of the first 
two volumes are precisely the same as those of the third and 
fourth volumes, which were printed in London the next year 
for K. and J. Dodsley. It is of course possible, though not 
probable, that Dodsley, in bringing out the second instalment 
of the book, exactly matched the paper and the type of the 
York printer; but the natural inference is that Dodsley, on 
terms not now known, likewise printed the first edition of 
the first instalment; that he kept with reluctance a bundle 
for the London market, and sent the rest down to York, to 
John Hinxman, who may be regarded as the real publisher 
of Tristram Shandy, in so far as it had any outside of the 
author and his friend Mr. Lee. The book was quietly placed 
on sale at York, without any advertisement in the local news- 
paper until February 12, 1760. 

It was a current story that Sterne set about and continued 
Tristram Shandy as a relief to melancholy. "Every sen- 
tence", it was said, "had been conceived and written under 
the greatest Heaviness of Heart". Certain it is that the 
composition of his book was accompanied by domestic troubles 
that might have crushed a man of grave temperament, but 
they affected the light-hearted Yorick little if at all. The 
last reference in Sterne 's correspondence to his mother occurs 
in a letter to John Blake in the autumn of 1758. He was 
coming in to York, he said, and wished to see his mother. A 
"Mrs. Sterne", -most likely this unfortunate woman, who 
may have been housed in "the common gaol at York" for a 

*'Ey^etptStov J c. 5. 

t This copy is described in the Athenwum, February 23, 1878. 



184 LAURENCE STERNE 

time before the reconciliation with her son, was buried from 
the church of St. Michael-le-Belfrey on May 5, 1759. It was 
the church where her son had preached a charity sermon 
many years before on the joy and rapture of the ancient 
Hebrew woman when the prophet Elijah placed in her arms 
her child, a moment before dead but now alive. His "proud 
and opulent" uncle Jaques Sterne, of many titles and many 
preferments, likewise died on the ninth of the following June, 
and was buried in the parish church at Rise. He left no 
children. Though the quarrel between uncle and nephew 
still remained abroach, Laurence yet expected a legacy. But 
just before death, Dr. Sterne, hitherto uncertain about the 
disposition of his property, willed all of his "real and per- 
sonal estate whatsoever" to his housekeeper, Sarah Benson, 
widow, of the parish of St. Michael-le-Belfrey.* Disap- 
pointed of his reasonable expectations, Laurence "was so 
offended that he did not putt on mourning tho' he had it 
ready, and on the contrary shewed all possible marks of 
disrespect to his Uncle's memory". 

The sentimental marriage with Miss Lumley had proved, 
as might have been foretold, uncomfortable to both parties. 
"Sterne and his Wife", said John Croft, in gathering up 
local anecdotes," * * * did not gee well together, for she 
used to say herself, that the largest House in England cou'd 
not contain them both, on account of their Turmoils and 
Disputes." Perhaps it was after one of these warm scenes 
that Sterne sent his Latin epistle, from which we have al- 
ready quoted, over to Hall-Stevenson about a projected trip to 
London. He was sitting at the time in Sunton's Coffee-House 
on the eve of departure, undisturbed by the loud conversation 
around him, as he began recklessly: "Nescio quid est materia 
cum, me, sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus 

quam unquam et sum possessus cum diabolo qui pellet me 

in urbem.'''' Over against this letter with its disagreeable 
inferences may be placed the rather pretty domestic scenes of 
1758, when the parson and his wife, as described in the Blake 
correspondence, were frequently taking a wheel together into 

* The will was proved in the Prerogative Court of York on June 13, 
1759. 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTRAM SHANDY 185 

York for their winter purchases and visits to friends. But 
sometime in 1759, affairs reached a crisis, owing, rumour had 
it, to Sterne's misconduct. His wife, suddenly stricken with 
palsy, "went out of her senses", and "fancied herself the 
Queen of Bohemia". Her husband, falling in with the whim 
of her delusion, "treated her as such, with all the supposed 
respect due to a crowned head". "In order to induce her to 
take the air", it was said further, "he proposed coursing in 
the way practised in Bohemia. For that purpose he pro- 
cured bladders and filled them with beans and tied them to 
the wheels of a single horse-chair, when he drove madam into 
a stubble field. With the motion of the carriage and the 
bladders ' rattle it alarmed the hares and the greyhounds were 
ready to take them."* The sad condition of Mrs. Sterne 
affected the health of little Lydia, who had been ailing for 
some time, throwing the "poor child into a fever". On the 
approach of winter, Sterne took a small house in the Minster 
Yard at York for his wife and daughter, that the one might 
have the best medical attendance, and the other "begin danc- 
ing" and be put to school. Of Lydia, he said: "If I cannot 
leave her a fortune, I will at least give her an education. ' ' 

Regardful as was Sterne for the comfort of his family, 
the illness of his wife nevertheless sat lightly upon him. 
While she was living by the minster, perhaps under the care 
of "a lunatic doctor", the unsteady parson consoled himself 
by carrying on a flirtation with Miss Catherine Fourmantelle, 
a professional singer, then in lodgings with her mother at 
Mrs. Joliffe's, close by in Stonegate. The Fourmantelles 
belonged to a family of French Protestants who fled to Eng- 
land for refuge in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. ' ' They 
styled themselves", said John Murray, the London publisher, 
who informed himself in the matter, "Beranger de Four- 
mantel, and possessed estates in St. Domingo, of which they 
were deprived by the measures consequent on the Revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes. An elder sister, it appears, con- 
formed to the Church of Rome, returned to Paris, and was 
reinstated in the family property, "f The younger sister, 

* John Croft, Scrapeana, 22, (second ed., York, 1792). 

t Murray 7 s preface to Sterne 's letters to Miss Fourmantelle as 
originally published in Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, II (Lon- 
don, 1855-56). 



186 LAUEENCE STERNE 

Catherine, a woman of much beauty and good character as 
well as birth, endeavoured to support herself and mother by 
her voice. She came to York, apparently in the autumn of 
1759, under an engagement to perform through the winter of 
1759-60 at the annual subscription concerts held in the As- 
sembly Rooms. On the evening of November 29, for example, 
a day of thanksgiving throughout Great Britain for Admiral 
Hawke's victory over the French, the event was celebrated at 
York by a concert of vocal and instrumental music in which 
"Miss Fourmantel" took part with "the best voices in town". 
She again sang at the Assembly Rooms on the last day of 
the year and enjoyed during the ball that followed her per- 
formance a tete-a-tete with Yorick over his "witty smart 
book". At his dictation, she wrote of him the next day to 
an acquaintance in London: "You must understand he is a 
kind and generous friend of mine, whom Providence has 
attach 'd to me in this part of the World, where I came a 
stranger." Near the close of her engagement, there was a 
concert for her benefit at the Assembly Rooms, for which she 
thanked "the Ladies and Gentlemen who honour 'd her with 
their Presence".* The progress of the sentimental intrigue 
is recorded in a series of brief notes that Sterne sent to Miss 
Fourmantelle during her stay at York. In the first of them, 
Sterne was not quite certain how his advances would be 
received, for he wrote : 

"Miss, I shall be out of all humour with you, and 

besides will not paint your Picture in black, which best 
becomes you, unless you accept of a few Bottles of Calcavillo, 
which I have ordered my Man to leave at the Dore in my 

Absence; the Reason of this trineing Present, you shall 

know on Tuesday night, and I half insist upon it, that you 

invent some plausible Excuse to be home by 7. Yrs. 

Yorick." 

Miss Fourmantelle was evidently glad of the delicious 
wine and the assurance that she should have her portrait, if 
all went well on the next Tuesday evening. The sweet 
Calcavillo was succeeded by "a pot of sweetmeats" and "a 
pot of honey", though Miss Fourmantelle was "sweeter than 
all the flowers it came from", and, most strangely, by a copy 

* York Courant, Feb. 5 and 19, 1760. The benefit was on Feb. 15. 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 187 

of Sterne's first printed sermon, along with the following 
letter : 

"My Dear Kitty, 1 Beg you will accept of the inclosed 

Sermon, which I do not make you a present of merely because 
it was wrote by myself, but because there is a beautiful Char- 
acter in it, of a tender and compassionate mind in the picture 
given of Elijah. Kead it, my dear Kitty, and believe me 
when I assure you that I see something of the same kind and 
gentle disposition in your heart which I have painted in the 
Prophet's, which has attach 'd me so much to you and your 
Interests that I shall live and dye your affectionate and faith- 
ful Laurence Sterne. 

"P. S. — If possible I will see you this afternoon, before 
I go to Mr. Fothirgils. Adieu, dear Friend! I had the 
pleasure to drink your health last night." 

The intimacy grew until it became at last "My dear, dear, 
Kitty", and "I love you to distraction * * * and will love 
you to eternity." 

This open flirtation — for the two met and conversed pub- 
licly at the Assembly Rooms and at the houses of mutual 
friends, and went shopping together at the mercer's — seems 
to have caused little or no scandal in easy-going York. 
Before Tristram Shandy went to press, Sterne touched upon 
the episode here and there in his book, wherein "dear, dear 
Kitty" becomes "dear, dear Jenny", wife, mistress, or child, 
whichever of the three the reader wills. The relation was, 
however, if Sterne's word is to be taken for it, "but that 
tender and delicious sentiment, which ever mixes in friend- 
ship, where there is a difference in sex". 

Tristram Shandy, coming out at this time, made its way 
rapidly. Writing for Sterne from York to her friend in 
London on January 1, 1760, Miss Fourmantelle said: "There 
are two Volumes just published here, which have made a 
great noise and have had a prodigious run; for, in two days 
after they came out, the Bookseller sold two hundred, and 
continues selling them very fast." Tristram Shandy was 
for York, first of all, a local book, in a measure like the 
Political Romance, but moving through a larger and less 
perilous series of portraits than that afforded by religious 



188 LAURENCE STERNE 

controversy. The author had, to be sure, "altered and new 
dressed ' ' the first draft for the removal of ' ' all locality ' ' ; but 
it could not have been changed in its prime essentials. Indeed 
it is hinted in the book itself that a key might be prepared 
to certain passages and incidents which have ' ' a private inter- 
pretation". As many times related, Sterne depicted himself 
as prebendary and rural parson in the indiscreet and out- 
spoken Yorick who scattered his "gibes and his jests about 
him ' ', never thinking that they would be remembered against 
him. Other characteristics of Sterne came out in Mr. Tris- 
tram Shandy, the name by which he first chose to be known 
in letters, and most appropriately, for slian or shandy is still 
a dialectical word in parts of Yorkshire for gay, unsteady, 
or crack-brained. It is of course really Sterne who speaks 
when Mr. Tristram Shandy says, after complaining of his 
asthma : " I have been the continual sport of what the world 
calls Fortune; and though I will not wrong her by saying, 
She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal 

evil; yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm 

it of her, that in every stage of my life, and at every turn 
and corner where she could get fairly at me, the ungracious 
duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful misadventures 
and cross accidents as ever small HERO sustained." 

The elder Shandys, father and uncle, were obviously less 
specialised portraits, being the compound of many observa- 
tions and memories reaching back to boyhood, when Laurie 
and his mother followed the poor ensign's regiment from 
barrack to barrack. A claim was put forward in Macmillan's 
Magazine for July, 1873, that my uncle Toby had an original 
in "a certain Captain Hinde" of Preston Castle, Berkshire. 
Sterne, it is said, made frequent visits to this "old soldier 

and country gentleman, * * * eccentric full of military 

habits and recollections simple-hearted, benevolent, and 

tenderly kind to the dumb creatures of the earth and air". 
There may be something in this persisting tradition, but the 
main hobby of my uncle Toby was evidently a hit at Sterne's 
friend — of uncertain name — in the Key to the Political 
Romance, who, with mind filled with the exploits of Marl- 
borough, insisted on interpreting the incidents of the church 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 189 

quarrel in the terms of King William's wars. Mr. Walter 
Shandy also belongs, in one or more of his characteristics, to 
that convivial company which met at Sunton's Coffee-House. 
He was a further development of the president of the evening, 
who set forth his hypothesis as soon as the members were 
assembled, and fought for it stubbornly to the last ditch, 
preferring death to surrender. Yorkshire likewise knew that 
Eugenius, who plays the part of good counsellor to Yorick, 
meant John Hall-Stevenson, and people must have relished 
the absurdity. 

To Dr. Topham, Sterne merely alluded by the way, under 
the name of Didius, the great church-lawyer, who had "a 
particular turn for taking to pieces, and new framing over 
again, all kinds of instruments" in order to insert his legal 
" wham- wham". Him he reserved for future instalments of 
his book, shifting his satire in the meantime to Dr. John Bur- 
ton, renamed Dr. Slop, Papist and man-midwife. No one 
could doubt who was intended by ' ' the little, squat, uncourtly 
figure * * * waddling thro' the dirt upon the vertebras of 
a little diminutive pony" out to Shandy Hall to try his 
newly invented forceps upon the head of Mr. Tristram 
Shandy. To add to the gaiety of it all, Dr. Burton, wofully 
lacking in a sense of humour, solemnly disclaimed all resem- 
blance to the caricature Sterne had drawn of him. Then 
another doctor of the neighbourhood, thinking that Sterne 
might have meant him, called the parson up early one morn- 
ing and entered vigorous protest against the "indecent liber- 
ties taken with him". After vain attempts to persuade the 
doctor of his error, Sterne, concludes the story, lost patience, 
and remarked sharply as his visitor was going: "Sir, I have 
not hurt you ; but take care : I am not born yet ; but heaven 
knows what I may do in the two next volumes." 

Amid the stir over Tristram Shandy at home, Sterne was 
looking towards London. "I wrote", he said, "not to be 
fed but to be famous." York might purchase the book for 
its local allusions, jests, and ridicule of a well-known "scien- 
tific operator" seen on the streets every day; but in London 
it would be judged on its wider merits, if it had any, quite 
apart from personalities. Could Tristram Shandy stand that 



190 LAURENCE STERNE 

test f To all appearance it was a mad performance not much. 
like anything that had ever come from the press. No wonder 
Dodsley hesitated and perhaps refused to become its sponsor. 
It is a novel, people would say, in which nothing happens, 
in which everything is topsy-turvy, with a dedication, a mock 
epistle at that, in the seventh chapter, and a sermon on 
conscience at the end, — to pass over without comment an 
impossible marriage-settlement, stars and long dashes, and 
an entire page smutched with printer's ink. It is called the 
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; but the 
gentleman is only an embryo. It turns out to be the life and 
opinions of the father and uncle of Tristram Shandy; and 
why not call it so? That would be the publisher's point of 
view ; and in truth not much could be said for the book on a 
cursory perusal. 

But a reader at leisure could not fail to see that there 
might be method in Sterne 's madness : that every part of the 
book, every episode, every digression, whim, aside, or in- 
nuendo, was perhaps carefully premeditated, and the whole 
organised on a plan which the author was keeping a half 
secret. As the Greek motto on the title-page announced to 
all who could read it, the book dealt not with adventures and 
men in action, but with men and their opinions. Sterne 
knew that character may be revealed quite as well by what 
men say as by what they do. If you know what a man really 
thinks on a variety of subjects, there is nothing left to know 
about him ; for you have got his heart and his brain. As if in 
burlesque of petty details of childhood prevalent in current 
fiction, Sterne set out with the conception and prenatal history 
of his hero, bringing to bear on the ludicrous theme quaint 
and musty speculations of medical writers over the animal 
spirits and the nature, endowments, and rights of the 
homunculus. After merely stating when Tristram was born, 
he proceeded to explain how, but stopping to describe the 
preliminaries, he did not advance beyond them. Mention of 
the midwife of the parish led Sterne on to the parson's wife 
who set her up in business, and to parson Yorick himself, 
who could not be dropped without a full portrait, for he was 
so singular in his habits, humours, friendships, and death. 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 191 

That done, it was necessary to give some account of the hero's 
father and mother — of Mr. Walter Shandy, a Turkey mer- 
chant, who gained a competency in trade, and then retired 
from London to Shandy Hall to pass the rest of his days 
there with a dull and good-natured wife. 

Naturally of an "acute and quick sensibility", the "little 
rubs and vexations" incident to the marriage state made the 
squire rather peevish towards others, though it was ' ' a drollish 
and witty kind of peevishness". He was indeed so "frank 
and generous ' ' in his heart that his friends never took offence 
at the "little ebullitions of this subacid humour". They 
rather enjoyed and relished it. Having nothing to do, Mr. 
Shandy spent his time on the old books that had been col- 
lected by his ancestors. In the course of his reading he fell 
in with the logicians and minute philosophers, from whom 
was derived the notion that there is something sacred about 
an hypothesis, as a means of arriving at truth, especially 
about a favourite one of his own making. "He was", says 
Sterne, "systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he 
would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture 
every thing in nature, to support his hypothesis." It was 
his opinion "That there was a strange kind of magick bias, 
which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly 
impressed upon our characters and conduct. * * * How 
many CAESARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere 
inspiration of the names,, have been rendered worthy of 
them? And how many, he would add, are there, who might 
have done exceding well in the world, had not their char- 
acters and spirits been totally depressed and NICODEMUS 'D 
into nothing?" 

It was quite right that the Yorkshire squire should have 
a foil in his brother, my uncle Toby, unlike him in tempera- 
ment and all else, save a crack in the brain that bespoke them 
of the same Shandy blood. As a boy, my uncle Toby read 
Guy of Warwick, The Seven Champions of Christendom, and 
all the romances of war and adventure he could find in his 
father 's library or purchase with stray pence from the pedlar 
of chap-books. A young man, he enlisted in King William's 
army, and after years of honourable service, received an 



192 LAURENCE STERNE 

embarrassing wound in the groin at the siege of Namur. 
Sent home, he retired to a neat house of his own near Shandy 
Hall, and by the aid of Corporal Trim, set up on the bowling 
green in the rear of the house-garden, fortifications with 
" batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes", by means of which, 
with the assistance of maps and books on military science, he 
followed Marlborough's army on the Continent, demolishing 
town after town in imitation of the great captain. War, 
which brutalises most men, developed in my uncle Toby all 
the finer instincts of human nature. He was of a peaceful, 

placid nature — "no jarring element in it, all was mixed 

up so kindly within him ; my uncle Toby had scarce a heart 
to retaliate upon a fly. 

" Go says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown 

one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him 

cruelly all dinner-time, and which after infinite attempts, 

he had caught at last, as it flew by him; I'll not hurt 

thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going 

across the room, with the fly in his hand. I'll not hurt a 

hair of thy head: Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and 

opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape ; go, poor devil, 

get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? This world surely 

is wide enough to hold both thee and me. ' ' 

These two brothers and the corporal, Sterne brought 
together in the back parlour of Shandy Hall on an evening 
while the parish midwife was above stairs with Mrs. Shandy. 
Then entered Dr. Slop, the celebrated accoucheur, fresh from 
disaster on the road, who was brain-cracked like the rest. At 
once began, to end only with Trim's recital of the sermon, 
the mad clash of opinions, accompanied by the most brilliant 
wit, irony, and mockery. Safe to say there had been nothing 
comparable to the performance since the days of Sir Toby 
Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Not that Sterne really 
imitated Shakespeare anywhere; but he thoroughly under- 
stood Shakespeare's fools, and created anew a rare company 
of them. Then he set them at their wild play. 

In describing Tristram Shandy, I have done not much 
more than paraphrase with free hanci what was said of it 
within a few months of its publication. The honour of writ- 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTRAM SHANDY 193 

ing the first printed account of the book belongs to one of 
that company of literary hacks, who, with Ralph Griffiths at 
their head, presided over the Monthly Review, which issued at 
the end of every month from the sign of the Dunciad in the 
Strand. The men on this magazine were all so dull, said 
Dr. Johnson, that they were compelled to read the books 
which they undertook to review. The scribbler to whom 
Tristram Shandy was assigned for December, 1759, prepared 
a long and faithful appreciation, patched with striking 
excerpts, and mild censure of the style as too much in the 
manner of Swift, and closing with a cordial recommendation 
of Mr. Tristram Shandy to the reader, "asa writer infinitely 
more ingenious and entertaining than any of the present race 
of novelists." Next came a paragraph of general praise in 
the Critical Review for January, 1760, managed by a society 
of smart gentlemen whom Smollett had brought together and 
trained, if I may quote the great lexicographer once more, to 
review books without ever reading them. The London Maga- 
zine followed in February with a high-flown apostrophe, 

beginning ' ' Oh rare Tristram Shandy ! Thou very sensible 

humorous pathetick humane unaccount- 
able! what shall we call thee? Rabelais, Cervantes, 

What? * * * If thou publishest fifty volumes, all abounding 
with the profitable and pleasant like these, we will venture 
to say thou wilt be read and admir'd." By this time the 
sketch of Parson Yorick, evidently the author himself, said 
the reviewers, was circulating through the newspapers, with 
blind conjecture as to who he might really be in the flesh. 

During these months of suspense, Sterne was staying at 
York that he might be near his wife and Miss Fourmantelle. 
Thus far he could have discovered nothing very unusual in 
the course his book was taking, though the reviews were rather 
more favourable than might have been anticipated of so wild 
a performance. Spice was now added to its reception by a 
letter from a London physician of his acquaintance, who 
took him to task for writing a book which could not "be put 
into the hands of any woman of character", and for alluding 
under a gross Rabelaisian name, to a senile infirmity — "a 
droll foible", Sterne called it — of the late Dr. Richard Mead, 

13 



194 LAUEENCE STEENE 

one of the most distinguished physicians of the age. The 
unknown physician* intimated that he was protesting not for 
himself alone but with the assent of Dr. Mead 's sons-in-law — 
Sir Edward Wilmot and Dr. Frank Nicholls, physician to his 
Majesty George the Second. After waiting four days for his 
humours to cool, Sterne sent back a gay reply in repudiation 
of the text that had been thrust upon him by his correspond- 
ent: Be mortuis nil nisi bonum. "I declare", averred Sterne 
of the text: "I have considered the wisdom and foundation 
of it over and over again, as dispassionately and charitably 
as a good Christian can, and, after all, I can find nothing in 
it, or make more of it, than a nonsensical lullaby of some 
nurse, put into Latin by some pedant, to be chanted by some 
hypocrite to the end of the world, for the consolation of 
departing lechers." The letter further contained an adroit 
defence of his conduct on all points and a casual statement 
of his serious aim to do the world good by ridiculing what he 
thought "of disservice to sound learning", wherever it might 
be uncovered. His age certainly needed the correction which 
it received from him, but of that it is not here to speak. Out 
of this hot correspondence, of which nothing is left save 
Sterne's one reply, came the news, just as Sterne would have 
it, that while Tristram Shandy was causing "a terrible fer- 
mentation" among London prudes and Sangrados, Garrick 
had read, admired, and passed the book on to his friends. 

II 

With Garrick, the regulator of public taste, for its 
sponsor, the success of Tristram Shandy might well seem 
assured. Garrick 's world, as Sterne knew, comprised the 
whole world of fashion. What cared Sterne for anybody 
else? Fine ladies and fine gentlemen who were bored by 
books, would read, he was aware, anything to which Garrick 
gave the cue. London was as eager to see Sterne as Sterne 
was to see London. The story which I have now to tell, much 

* In Original Letters of Laurence Sterne, 88 (London 1788), the 
physician is referred to as ' ' Doctor L . ' ' Perhaps he may be identi- 
fied with Dr. Thomas Lawrence, physician to Dr. Johnson, and for a 
time an associate of Dr. Nicholls. 



PUBLICATION OF TRISTRAM SHANDY 195 

of it in the words of John Croft's reminiscences and Sterne's 
own letters to friends at home, reads like romance rather 
than sober history. The visit to London came about by mere 
accident. On a morning of the first week in March, Stephen 
Croft, John's brother, rode in from Stillington for the York 
coach up to London. Meeting Sterne on the street, he offered 
to take him along as a companion and to pay all expenses, 
going and coming. Sterne at first demurred, saying that he 
had scarce time to prepare for the journey and that it would 
be wrong to leave his wife in her wretched illness. Sterne's 
hesitancy was, however, easily overcome, and within an hour 
after packing "his best breeches", he was on the way to 
London. Reaching town, apparently on the evening of the 
fourth, the squire and parson lodged with Nathaniel Cholm- 
ley, Esq., a York friend, living at that time in Chapel Street, 
Mayfair. To the surprise of the two other gentlemen, Sterne 
was missing the next morning at breakfast. He had gone out 
to Dodsley's at the sign of Tully's Head in Pall Mall to test 
the sale of his book. On enquiry of the shopman for the 
works of Mr. Tristram Shandy, he was told that they "could 
not be had in London either for Love or money". Later in 
the morning he saw the great Dodsley himself, who readily 
closed with him for a second edition of Tristram Shandy, and 
for two volumes of sermons to be composed and published 
within two months. There was some haggling with the pub- 
lisher over the price. At first the author stood out for £650, 
then dropped to £600, and eventually accepted, under the 
terms of the agreement signed on May 19, £450. It seems 
quite clear, however, that certain moneys advanced by Dod- 
sley were not included in the final sum, for it was understood 
by everybody — Gray, Walpole, and others — that the lucky 
author received £600 or more for his book. No time was lost 
on preliminaries. In the London Chronicle for March 8-11, 
Dodsley announced that a new edition of Tristram Shandy 
would appear in a few days. Elated by his first success, 
Sterne further promised a fresh volume every year. After 
placing this mortgage on his brains for the rest of his life, he 
"returned to Chapell Street and came skipping into the room 
and said that he was the richest man in Europe". 



196 LAUEENCE STEENE 

So swift ran the current of events during the next weeks 
that our narrative can hardly keep up with it. On the morn- 
ing of March 6, Sterne called upon "dear Mr. Garrick", and 
in the evening of the same day attended Drury Lane, where 
he was "astonished" by the great actor's performance. The 
play for that night was Home's Siege of Aquileia, in which 
Garrick took the part of the stubborn old Eoman general who 
preferred the welfare of his country to the life of his sons. 
What occurred within the next day or two, we leave to a 
letter, dated March 8, to Miss Fourmantelle, still at York. 
Sterne was sitting solitary and alone in his bedchamber 
after returning again from the theatre, as he wrote: "I 
have the greatest honours paid and most civilities shewn 
me, that were ever known from the Great ; and am engaged all 
ready to ten Noble Men and Men of fashion to dine. Mr. 
Garrick pays me all and more honour than I could look for. 
I dined with him to-day, and he has promised Numbers of 
great People to carry me to dine with 'em. He has given me 
an Order for the Liberty of his Boxes, and of every part of 
his House for the whole Season; and indeed leaves nothing 
undone that can do me either Service or Credit ; he has under- 
taken the management of the Booksellers, and will procure 
me a great price."* 

On first meeting, Garrick told Sterne of a wild rumour in 
circulation that William Warburton, just elevated to the see 
of Gloucester, was to be introduced into the next instalment 
of Tristram Shandy as the tutor 'of Master Tristram. An 
allegory, to give the story as elaborated by the clubs, had 
been run up on the life of Job. Warburton wias to appear as 
Satan, who smote the ancient patriarch from head to foot, 

* Sterne is reported to have told the story differently to his London 
friends. According to that version, Garrick at first presented him only 
with the freedom of the pit at Drury Lane. Meeting the actor some 
time later, Sterne remarked that Beard, though there was no acquaintance 
then between them, had offered him the freedom of the whole house over 
at Covent Garden. "I told him on the occasion/ ' Sterne is made to 
say of Garrick, "that he acted great things and did little ones: — So he 
stammered and looked foolish, and performed, at length, with a bad 
grace, what his rival manager was so kind as to do with the best grace 
in the world — But no more of that — he is so complete on the stage, that 
I ought not to mention his patch-work off it. " — Original Letters of 
Laurence Sterne, 60-61 (London, 1788). 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTKAM SHANDY 197 

while other well-known polemical divines — Zachary Grey, 
Charles Peters, and Leonard Chappelow, who had been en- 
gaged in angry disputes with Warburton, two of them on 
the Book of Job — were to be brought in as Job's miserable 
comforters. Through it all, my uncle Toby and Corporal 
Trim were to operate on the distinguished tutor in the way 
they had already done with Dr. Slop in compelling him to 
listen to the sermon on conscience. Sterne had apparently 
come to London with a half-formed plan similar to this 
whirling in his head. Had he stayed at home and gone on as 
was intended, he might have produced a burlesque, as rich 
as deserved, of the vain pedantries of Warburton and his 
assailants. But once in London and once aware of the posi- 
tion Warburton held among the bishops, nothing remained 
for Sterne but to lay the "vile story" to the malice of his 
enemies. Unable to sleep because of it, Sterne wrote off, near 
midnight of the sixth, a hurried letter to Garrick asking for 
an introduction to the author — "God bless him!" — of the 
Divine Legation. The next morning, Garrick sent a note to 
Warburton on the "impertinent story", and received an 
immediate reply from Grosvenor Square, in which the bishop 
expressed a desire to have the distinction of Mr. Sterne's 
acquaintance. At this first meeting, Sterne was pleased, one 
can well understand, to find that Warburton had already 
recommended Tristram Shandy to the best company in town, 
and defended the book in " a very grave assembly ' ' of bishops, 
apparently against the attacks of Dr. Thomas Newton, the 
editor of Milton and soon the Bishop of Bristol. Eager to 
become his patron, Warburton presented Sterne, on one of 
his visits to Grosvenor Square, with a purse of guineas, and a 
bundle of books for the improvement of his style. Sterne 
took the guineas and kept them. He took the books also, but 
treated the advice that accompanied them with the contempt 
it deserved. No situation more humorous can easily be 
imagined than the dull and heavy Warburton instructing the 
light-hearted Yorick out of Aristotle and Longinus. So 
unusual was the gift of guineas that it led to a report, though 
there was nothing in it, that Warburton devised this way 
to escape becoming tutor to Mr. Tristram Shandy. 



198 LAUBENCE STEBNE 

The patronage of Warburton, the friend and editor of the 
late Mr. Pope, as well as the champion of orthodoxy, made 
Sterne's brilliant reception doubly sure. Garrick could 
announce to the clubs that he had talked and dined with the 
author of Tristram Shandy, who was just arrived in town. 
He was a Yorkshire parson named Sterne, Garrick would 
say ; the strangest sort of man he had ever met with ; a bundle 
of contradictions, a jester and sentimentalist like the Yorick 
of the book, but withal a most agreeable gentleman, easy and 
affable in manners; in speech wild and reckless mostly, but 
at times uttering studied compliments in cleverly turned 
phrases, as if he had long been an adept in the art. It was 
Warburton's business to make enquiries of Yorkshire clergy- 
men in London respecting Sterne's life in the north — how he 
was regarded by his brethren and how he had conducted him- 
self as vicar and prebendary. The account Warburton 
received of Sterne was in all respects "very advantageous". 
The questionable jests in Tristram Shandy were clearly to be 
ascribed to an exuberance of wit and to the bad taste of a man 
who had lived out of the great world and its conventions; 
they were mere scratches, so to speak, upon Mr. Sterne's 
character, in no way penetrative of heart and brain. His 
conscience at ease on the score of Sterne's morals, Warburton 
took the author under his protection and recommended Mr. 
Tristram Shandy to the whole bench of bishops as "the Eng- 
lish Rabelais". The bishops did not know, said Horace 
Walpole, in commenting on the incident, what was meant by 
Warburton's phrase, as they had never heard of the French 
humourist. 

From his two friends, the news that the author of Tristram 
Shandy was really in London ran like a flame through society. 
With a view to impending social demands, Sterne left Cholm- 
ley 's on the eighth of March ; and after looking over Piccadilly 
and the Haymarket, moved into commodious lodgings at the 
second house in St. Alban's Street, now no more, just off 
Pall Mall. Stephen Croft, having finished his business, soon 
returned into Yorkshire, while Sterne remained to reap the 
personal delight of his fame. The new apartments, near 
Dodsley's shop and in the very heart of fashion, became the 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 199 

centre of extraordinary scenes. "From Morning to night", 
Sterne wrote to Miss Fourmantelle, "my Lodgings, which by 
the by, are the genteelest in Town, are full of the greatest 
Company. I dined these two days with two ladies of the 
Bedchamber; then with Lord Rockingham, Lord Edgecomb, 
Lord Winchelsea, Lord Littleton, a Bishop, &c, &c. I assure 
you, my Kitty, that Tristram is the Fashion." And again, 
with additional details, his head still topsy-turvy: "My 
Lodging is every hour full of your Great People of the first 

Rank, who strive who shall most honour me : even all the 

Bishops have sent their Compliments to me, and I set out on 
Monday Morning to pay my Visits to them all. I am to dine 
with Lord Chesterfield this Week, &c. &c, and next Sunday 
Lord Rockingham takes me to Court. I have snatch 'd this 
single moment, tho' there is company in my rooms, to tell my 
dear, dear, dear Kitty this, and that I am hers for ever and 
ever. ' ' 

And so it went on to the end of the season. Every morn- 
ing for two months Sterne's rooms were thronged with poli- 
ticians, courtiers, and men of fashion; and every evening 
Sterne was hurried off his legs in going to these great people. 
It was most fitting that Rockingham, the future Prime 
Minister, should have led the way in honouring the Yorkshire 
author. At that time Rockingham was Lord-Lieutenant of the 
North and East Ridings and Vice- Admiral of Yorkshire, with 
a seat at Malton, not far from Sterne's livings. Since the 
Marquis and Marchioness of Rockingham were regular sub- 
scribers to the Assembly Rooms, where Miss Fourmantelle had 
sung, Sterne was likely acquainted with both of them long 
before coming to London. Winchelsea, related to Rockingham 
by blood, was First Lord of the Admiralty. "Dick" Edge- 
cumbe, wit and Privy Councillor, it may be conjectured, first 
brought together Sterne and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Two of 
the men of rank who overwhelmed the author with attentions 
were patrons of literature. Chesterfield, his political days 
long over, had retired to his luxurious house and garden in 
Mayfair, to devote himself to literature and the entertain- 
ment of his friends. Lyttelton had been the companion of 
Pope, Thomson, and Fielding, who dedicated to him Tom 



200 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Jones, and never tired of praising his generosity, talents, and 
large fund of learning. 

Of the associations that were linking Sterne through 
Lyttelton and Chesterfield to the great names of a past age, 
none pleased him quite so much as the singular manner in 
which Lord Bathurst sought him out at Carlton House a 
few weeks later. Sterne never forgot that distinction. "He 
came up to me", said Sterne long after, "one day, as I was 
at the Princess of Wales's court. 'I want to know you, Mr. 
Sterne; but it is fit you should know, also, who it is that 
wishes this pleasure. You have heard, continued he, of an 
old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have 
sung and spoken so much ; I have lived my life with geniuses 
of that cast ; but have survived them ; and, despairing ever to 
find their equals, it is some years since I have closed my 
accounts, and shut up my books, with thoughts of never 
opening them again; but you have kindled a desire in me of 
opening them once more before I die ; which I now do ; so go 
home and dine with me. ' ' ' 

It was in truth as fine a compliment as could be paid to 
genius. The aged peer, who had been the patron and pro- 
tector of two generations of literary men, was dying in 
despair of ever meeting their equals again. He saw Sterne, 
ordered his table spread again, and resolved to live once more. 

Amid these honours came that preferment in the Church 
which Sterne had missed ten years before. He had been 
disappointed, one may remember, when Coxwold went to his 
former curate, Richard "Wilkinson, owing, it seemed quite 
clear, to the opposition of his uncle and the Archbishop of 
York. Since then Dr. Sterne had died and a new archbishop 
was on the throne. On the tenth of March died also the 
incumbent of Coxwold, most unexpectedly, for he was still 
a young man. Within a few days after the news reached 
London, Lord Fauconberg, then at Court, nominated Sterne, 
on the solicitation of Stephen Croft, to the vacant living, then 
estimated at £160 a year above the customary dues; and on 
March 29, Archbishop Gilbert, who was passing the winter 
at his house in Grosvenor Square near Warburton's, com- 
pleted the appointment. By this act all of Sterne's sorrows 



PUBLICATION OF TRISTRAM SHANDY 201 

and tears were "wiped away". There was nothing more 
that he could "wish or want in this world". 

Near the same time, Sterne was painted in his clerical 
gown by Sir Joshua Reynolds, at the request of Lord Ossory. 
The painting afterwards passed to Lord Holland, and at his 
death to the splendid gallery of the Marquis of Lansdowne. 
It is a marvellous portrait in pose and feature. As if already 
fatigued by three weeks of dinners, Sterne, say Reynolds's 
biographers, propped himself up while sitting to the great 
painter; and his wig contriving to get a little to one side, 
Sir Joshua, with the insight of genius, readily took advantage 
of the accident and painted it so, giving the head the true 
Shandean air upon which Sterne prided himself. The face, 
pale and thin, as one would have it, is all intelligence and 
humour. Reynolds, glad to confront the lion of the hour 
alone and face to face, would accept no fee. The portrait 
was at once placed in the hands of Ravenet, who made a 
mezzotint worthy of the original. With reference to it all, 
Sterne wrote, his thought on a full purse: "There is a fine 
print going to be done of me, so I shall make the most of 
myself and sell both inside and out."* 

In the meantime, Dodsley was hastening forward the 
second edition of Tristram Shandy. At Garrick's table, 
Sterne had sat with Richard Berenger, gentleman of his 
Majesty's horse, a man of charming mind and manners con- 
joined with the gayer vices of the age; a sort of Hall- 
Stevenson bred to the city instead of to the country. To 
Dr. Johnson he was "the standard of ideal elegance", and 
Hannah More thought him "all chivalry, blank verse, and 
anecdote". He bade Garrick's guest tell him all his wants 
while in London, and he would fulfil them. Taking him at 

* The statement, many times repeated, that Reynolds painted Sterne 
at one sitting is quite erroneous. As shown by Reynolds's Pocket BooJc 
of appointments (MS now in possession of the Royal Academy of Arts), 
there were eight sittings: the first on March 20 and the last on April 21. 

The famous portrait is carefully described by Graves and Cronin 
in A History of the WorTcs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, III, 933-934 (Lon- 
don, 1899) : 

11 Three-quarter length, canvas 50x40 in. . . . Sitting in a wig and 
gown; right elbow on a table, forefinger to forehead; left arm bent, 
hand to hip; knee breeches; on table are papers — on one, J. Reynolds, 
pinxt 1760 '■ — and inkstand ;• a ring on the little finger of left hand. ' ' 



202 LAUEENCE STEENE 

his word, Sterne addressed to him, as the day for the new 
edition of Tristram Shandy was approaching", a wild, profane 
letter beginning: "What the duce can the man want now? 
* * * The Vanity of a pretty woman in the hey-day of her 
Triumphs, is a Fool to the Vanity of a successful author." 
This reckless outpour of speech was but preliminary to 
an urgent request that Mr. Berenger, "a hard faced, impu- 
dent, honest dog", should sally out to Leicester Fields and 
demand of Mr. Hogarth ' ' ten strokes " of his " witty chisel to 
clap at the Front" of the coming Tristram Shandy. Hogarth 
sent back, free of charge, Trim reading the sermon on con- 
science in the back parlour of Shandy Hall before Dr. Slop 
and the two brothers. According to John Croft, it had been 
Sterne's idea, when first writing his book, to dedicate it to 
"Mr. Pitt, then Secretary of State, that it might lay in his 
Parlour Window, and amuse him after the Fatigues of Busi- 
ness as a lounging Book". Thinking, doubtless, that a dedi- 
cation from a humble clergyman to the Great Commoner 
might seem impertinent, Sterne abandoned the notion and 
satisfied himself with a mock epistle to "any one Duke, Mar- 
quis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron in these his Majesty's domin- 
ions", who would pay fifty guineas for the honour. Though 
still unacquainted with Pitt, Sterne could now have no hesita- 
tion, for he felt himself the equal of any minister of state. 
On the twenty-eighth of March, he sent his dedication over to 
Pitt with a brief note, not exactly asking his approval so 
much as taking it for granted that there could be no offence. 
On the third of April, within a month after Sterne had 
set foot in London, appeared the new edition of Tristram 
Shandy, bearing the old title-page down through the sentence 
from Epictetus to the addition : 

"The SECOND EDITION. 

' ' London : 

"Printed for R. and J. DODSLEY in Pall Mall. 

"M.DCC.LX." 

All copies had, I think, the frontispiece by Hogarth, which 
Ravenet engraved for Dodsley, and most, though not all, of 
them contained the handsome tribute "To the Right Hon- 



PUBLICATION OF TBISTKAM SHANDY 203 

ourable Mr. Pitt", preceded by a paragraph on the circum- 
stances under which the book had been written in "a bye 
corner of the kingdom, and in a retired thatch 'd house". 
There the author had lived, it was prettily said, "in a con- 
stant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill health, 
and other evils of life, by mirth ; being firmly persuaded that 
every time a man smiles, — but much more so, when he laughs, 
it adds something to this Fragment of Life". 

The second edition barely satisfied the market for the 
remnant of the season. Before the end of the year, Dodsley 
reprinted it twice again, making in all four editions within 
a twelvemonth, to say nothing of several piracies. As his 
book became more widely known, the adulation of Sterne 
went on at a quicker pace than ever. "Tristram Shandy", 
the poet Gray wrote to Thomas Wharton on April 22, "is 
still a greater object of admiration, the man as well as the 
book. One is invited to dinner, where he dines, a fortnight 
beforehand." " Dinners for a month to come" was John 
Croft's estimate, so that "it allmost amounted to a Parlia- 
mentary Interest to have his company at any rate". Giddy 
with these attentions, Sterne invited Miss Fourmantelle to 
come up to London and share with him the closing weeks of 
his triumph. Obedient to Yorick's call, she reached town by 
the middle of April and took lodgings in Meard's Court, 
Soho, within the district of balls, concerts, and masquerades. 
Sterne quickly saw that he had made a grave mistake in his 
thoughtlessness. He might hold in the abstract that prudence 
and discretion are only vices misnamed virtues; but the 
intimate friend of Garrick and Warburton could not take 
Kitty, in face of all the world, to Ranelagh or to the theatre, 
however much she may have set her heart upon these amuse- 
ments ; he could only send her tickets, with the hope that she 
would use them for herself and her friends. With great 
difficulty he contrived even to visit her for afternoon tea or 
for a sentimental evening; and before many days, numerous 
engagements to others so pressed upon him that he forgot all 
his appointed hours with her. On a Wednesday he sent her 
a note explaining why he had not called since Sunday and 
putting off an engagement until Friday. Five days without 



204 LAUEENCE STEENE 

seeing the woman whom he had sworn to make his wife, 
should Providence so order, and to love forever and ever ! 
"Dear Kitty" could not compete, I fear, with the ladies of 
her Majesty's bedchamber. So Sterne sent in his excuses 
for neglect, and the beautiful singer drifted away through 
concert halls nobody knows whither. The last letter, cutting 
off a sentence, runs as follows: 

"Dear Kitty, If it would have saved my Life, I have 

not had one hour or half hour in my power since I saw you 
on Sunday; else my dear Kitty may be sure I should not 
have been thus absent. Every minute of this day and 
to-morrow is pre-engaged, that I am as much a prisoner as if 
I was in Jayl. I beg, dear girl, you will believe I do not 
spend an hour where I wish, for I wish to be with you 
always: but fate orders my steps, God knows how for the 
present. Adieu ! Adieu ! ' ' 

How Sterne bore himself among the great people whither 
fate called him away from dear Kitty and what they thought 
of him, were told in the April number of the Royal Female 
Magazine, issued on the first of May. The account was 
immediately copied into nearly all of the London news- 
papers. A notice so extended as this was rare in the press 
of the eighteenth century, even on the death of men con- 
spicuous in church and state. Sterne was in truth our first 
writer about whom people cared much to know — how he 
lived, how he looked, and what he said and did when among 
his friends. The man who attempted to inform them was 
Dr. John Hill, a literary hack and quack-doctor, celebrated 
for an "elixir of Bardana" and various other nostrums, 
"excellent beyond parallel' '. To his purpose, the physician 
gathered up anecdotes running through the London clubs; 
and in addition to this, he must have had recourse to a friend 
of the author — perhaps Nathaniel Cholmley of Chapel 
Street — for details of Sterne's career in the north. There 
was in fact a hint abroad that Sterne himself furnished the 
material. As is evident at a glance, the brief biography 
that Dr. Hill wrote for the Royal Female Magazine contains 
several inaccuracies, but its general truth is beyond con- 
tradiction. It would be a mistake to imagine Sterne as an 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 205 

awkward and unpolished country parson who had spent his 
time in the cultivation of his glebe, though he had indeed 
been engaged in that. He was a gentleman by birth who 
had been bred at the university; and he had been the asso- 
ciate of gentlemen all his life. His transition to London 
society was thus not so abrupt as it might seem, abrupt 
though it was. Notwithstanding many oddities, there was 
grace, native and acquired, in his manners, so that he 
adjusted himself to his new surroundings with the greatest 
ease. "I think", said Dr. Hill, "he is the only man, of 
whom many speak well, and of whom no body speaks ill. 
* * * Every body is curious to see the author; and, when 
they see him, every body loves the man. There is a pleas- 
antry in his conversation that always pleases ; and a goodness 
in his heart, which adds the greater tribute of esteem. 
Many have wit; but there is a peculiar merit in giving 
variety. This most agreeable joker can raise it from any 
subject; for he seems to have studied all; and can suit it to 
his company; the depth of whose understandings he very 
quickly fathoms." 

The humourist's ability to please by his smart jests and 
repartees, was slightly qualified by John Croft, who wrote 
of him: "Sterne was best and shewed himself to most ad- 
vantage in a small company, for in a large one he was 
frequently at a Loss and dumb-foundered. * * * He wou'd 
frequently come out with very silly things and expressions, 
which if they did not meet that share of approbation from 
the Publick which he expected, he wou'd be very angry and 
even affrontive." Started by Dr. Hill, a story went through 
the newspapers of a sharp encounter between Sterne and 
Dr; Messenger Monsey, long chief physician to the Whig 
politicians; a learned and skilful man, but ostentatious and 
otherwise disagreeable in his behaviour. The incident created 
so great a stir among Dr. Monsey 's friends, including Garrick, 
that Sterne was compelled to soften some of the details, but 
he could not deny the main facts. In a letter to Stephen 
Croft, he claimed that Dr. Hill had made a mistake in the 
physician and in the place where the encounter occurred. Be 



206 LAURENCE STEENE 

this is it may, Sterne silenced the man across the table to the 
delight of the other guests: 

"At the last dinner", says the tale as originally told, 
"that the late lost amiable Charles Stanhope gave to Genius, 
Yorick was present. The good old man was vexed to see a 
pedantic medicine monger take the lead, and prevent that 
pleasantry, which good wit and good wine might have occa- 
sioned, by a discourse in the unintelligible language of his 
profession, concerning the difference between the phrenitis, 
and the paraphrenitis, and the concommitant categories of 
the mediastinum and pleura. 

" Good-humour 'd Yorick saw the sense of the master of 
the feast, and fell into the cant and jargon of physic, as if 
he had been one of Radcliffe's travellers. 'The vulgar prac- 
tice', says he, ' savours too much of mechanical principles; 
the venerable ancients were all empirics, and the profession 
will never regain its ancient credit, till practice falls into 
the old tract again. I am myself an instance; I caught cold 
by leaning on a damp cushion, and, after sneezing and 
sniveling a fortnight, it fell upon my breast: they blooded 
me, blistered me, and gave me robs and bobs, and lobocks, 
and eclegmeta ; but I grew worse : for I was treated accord- 
ing to the exact rules of the college. In short, from an 
inflammation it came to an ADHESION, and all was over 
with me. They advised me to Bristol, that I might not do 
them the scandal of dying under their hands ; and the Bristol 
people, for the same reason, consigned me over to Lisbon. 
But what do I? why, I considered an adhesion is, in plain 
English, only a sticking of two things together, and that 
force enough would pull them asunder. I bought a good 
ash-pole, and began leaping over all the walls and ditches 
in the country. From the height of the pole I used to come 
souce down upon my feet, like an ass when he tramples upon 
a bull-dog: but it did not do. At last, when I had raised 
myself perpendicularly over a wall, I used to fall exactly 
across the ridge of it, upon the side opposite to the adhesion. 
This tore it off at once, and I am as you see. Come fill a 
glass to the prosperity of the empiric medicine.' " 

By the first of May, Sterne, all worn out and jaded, 



PUBLICATION OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 207 

began to turn his thoughts towards home. In his absence, 
Stephen Croft had looked after the welfare of his wife and 
daughter, supplying them with guineas and charging them 
up to Sterne. Lydia was getting on well at school, though 
she had been annoyed by being called Miss Tristram and 
Miss Shandy. Mrs. Sterne was mending so that there could 
be no further serious thought of Miss Fourmantelle. York 
had been kept posted of Sterne's extraordinary reception by 
letters from Cholmley to his friend at Stillington Hall. The 
anecdotes related by Dr. Hill also came down with the Royal 
Female Magazine, regularly taken at York, where they 
caused some hostile comment, since they touched on local 
affairs as well as on Sterne's courses in London. The be- 
haviour of Sterne at dinner with the London physicians was 
regarded as undignified; and the rumour that he was going 
to ridicule Warburton, after accepting a purse of guineas 
from him, disturbed the clergy, for they remembered the 
Watch-Coat. Sterne naturally wished to see his family, to 
set matters right, and to take up his preferment. 

Several causes for delay, however, intervened. It was 
most difficult for Sterne to withstand the pressure of friends 
to stay on to the end of the month. At this time he was 
receiving "great notice" from Prince Edward, just created 
Duke of York. This royal scion, brother of the Prince of 
Wales, soon to become king, was a good-humoured young 
man who gave himself up to pleasure and all manner of social 
functions. He had a tongue, says Walpole, that ran like a 
fiddlestick. Some years later he passed over to the south of 
France, and died there in consequence of cold and fever 
caught by dancing all night. Sterne supped with the Duke 
of York, and followed him to fashionable concerts where he 
was expected to perform. There yet remained, too, the final 
honour of all the honours that had been lavished on Sterne. 
He was invited to Windsor. On the sixth of May, Prince 
Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had won the battle of Minden 
the year before, was to be installed — in the proxy of Sir 
Charles Cottrell Dormer — Knight of the Garter, along with 
Earl Temple, then Lord Privy Seal, and the Marquis of 
Rockingham, who, as said once before, had taken the York- 



208 LAURENCE STERNE 

shire author under his especial protection. Nearly a week 
was consumed by the journey to Windsor, the installation, 
and miscellaneous festivities. The grand procession set out 
from London with Sterne in the suite of Lord Rockingham. 
It was a gorgeous scene in Saint George's Chapel on the next 
day when the investiture of surcoat, belt, and sword took 
place in accordance with the impressive rites peculiar to this 
ancient order of chivalry. From the chapel the knights with 
their retinues moved to the great guard-chamber, where a 
dinner was served, says Sterne, at a cost of fourteen hundred 
pounds. Before the second course, Garter King-at-Arms, 
attended by his knight-companions, entered the hall and pro- 
claimed the styles of Earl Temple and the Marquis of Rock- 
ingham. At night there was "a magnificent ball and 
supper"; and on the next morning the newly elected knights 
and "the Right Hon. Mr. Secretary Pitt" were granted the 
freedom of the borough of Windsor. Sterne, then, if never 
before, met the great statesman to whom he had dedicated 
Tristram Shandy. 

On returning to London with Lord Rockingham, Sterne 
had still many engagements to clear off his books, two vol- 
umes of sermons to watch through the press, and the final 
contract to sign with Dodsley. There were two instruments, 
each dated May 19, 1760. According to the one, Sterne was 
yet to receive £450 on the sermons and the first instalment 
of Tristram Shandy; according to the other, Dodsley agreed 
to pay him £380 for two more volumes of Tristram Shandy 
six months after publication.* With a part of the money 
already paid in, Sterne purchased a carriage and a pair of 
horses that he might drive down into Yorkshire "in a supe- 
rior style". He set out, if he followed his plans of a week 
before, on Monday the twenty-sixth, that he might surely be 
in York on the next Sunday to preach in the minster before 
the judges of the summer session. Here in the great cathe- 
dral ended his triumph. 

In beginning the story of how the Yorkshire parson came 
into his fame, I said that it would read like romance. To 
Sterne himself, it seemed all a dream; for writing to a 
* Willis's Current Notes, IV, 91 (Nov., 1854). 



PUBLICATION OF TRISTRAM SHANDY 209 

friend of his sojourn in London, he said : ' ' I was lost all the 
time I was there, and never found till I got to this Shandy- 
castle of mine." On that March morning when Stephen 
Croft by merest chance fell in with him at York, the author 
of Tristram Shandy was a poor and obscure country parson 
without the means of a journey to London. He was to be 
"f ranked" up and back by the squire of Stillington. Within 
three months he returned in his own carriage and driving 
his own horses, the best that could be procured. Six weeks 
at York and Sutton, and he was settled in his new parish. 
No man was better known in all England. A wager was 
laid in a company of London wits that a letter addressed 
"Tristram Shandy, Europe", would reach the popular 
author. The letter, says John Croft, duly reached York, and 
"the Post Boy, meeting Sterne on the road to Sutton, pulled 
off his hatt and gave it him". 



14 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SERMONS OF MR. YORICK 
MAY AND JUNE, 1760 

Looked at in other lights, the visit to London loses some 
of its brilliant hues. A successful author must expect many 
annoyances, alike from the friends and from the enemies that 
his books are sure to make; but Sterne perhaps encountered 
more than any other of his century, if we except Pope. The 
art, the jests, and the personal character of Mr. Tristram 
Shandy were all themes for censure as well as for praise. A 
persisting source of irritation to Sterne was the sketch which 
"Bardana" Hill drew of him for the newspapers. It had 
been written with kindly intentions merely for the sake of a 
guinea or two; but Sterne, unaccustomed as he was to anec- 
dotes and chit-chat about himself, half-truths and half-lies, 
magnified the good-natured article into a malicious attack 
upon his honour as a gentleman. For a man so proud of his 
ancestry as was Sterne, it nettled him, first of all, to be told 
that he was "born of the barracks ". Again, the incumbent 
of Coxwold had died, leaving, like Trollope's Rev. Mr. 
Quiverful, as his only estate a poor widow with unnumbered 
children. A report, coming into print with Dr. Hill, went 
current that Sterne had promised the destitute woman a hun- 
dred pounds outright and a liberal pension. Disclaim it as 
often as he would, the rumour pursued him through York- 
shire to his perpetual embarrassment; for had he wished to 
perform the charity, his means would not have allowed it. 

Likewise the story that immunity from satire had cost 
Warburton a purse of guineas could not be laid for all his 
efforts. Sterne might set it down as a lie; but when it was 
again put into circulation by Dr. Hill, everybody had it and 
many believed it. Indeed Warburton, despite the gift, was 
trembling for what might happen in the next instalment of 

210 




From 



Laurence Sterne 
painting by Reynolds at Lansdowne House 



THE SEEMONS OF MR. YORICK 211 

Tristram Shandy. Add to this the indiscreet conduct of 
Hall-Stevenson. Sterne had been in London but a few 
weeks when his friend, assuming the name of "Antony 
Shandy", greeted him with Two Lyric Epistles; of which 
one was addressed "to my Cousin Shandy on his Coming to 
Town ' ' ; while the other was in honour of i ' the Grown Gen- 
tlewomen, the Misses of * * * * "; that is, the Misses of 
York. It was not a squeamish age. "Fine ladies" as well 
as "fine gentlemen" repeated and laughed at jests and 
stories coarser than any in the collection of Mr. Tristram 
Shandy; but Hall-Stevenson went rather beyond the relish 
of well-bred people of either sex; and Sterne was held 
responsible for his cousin Antony's offence against this better 
public taste. Though that was not quite just, he neverthe- 
less read the epistles in manuscript, showing them to his 
acquaintance, and permitted them to go to Dodsley's press, 
after striking out a stanza here and there. Over these 
puerile verses, discreditable alike to all who had a hand in 
them, the friendship between Sterne and Warburton was 
strained near to the breaking-point. Sterne's full confession 
and penitence barely saved him. 

But Hall- Stevenson and Dr. Hill were only the beginning 
of Sterne's troubles. Six weeks in London, and all Grub 
Street broke loose at his heels. On its first appearance, the 
reviewers for the standard monthlies had accepted, we have 
seen, Tristram Shandy as a book of unusual wit when com- 
pared with the humorous trash then coming from the press. 
They did not know at the time that the author was a clergy- 
man, deserving to be unfrocked for playing the part of a 
king's jester. Their favourable opinion once delivered, they 
remained silent on the reissue of Tristram Shandy, except 
for casual reference to it, though they were but lying in wait 
for an opportune moment to attack. For a time the news- 
papers, whose printers, or editors as we should now call 
them, took no pains to form an independent estimate, merely 
reflected the magazines; but towards the end of April, 
after the second edition of Shandy was out, they opened fire. 
On April 28, the Public Ledger, to cite one instance, pub- 
lished the first of a short series of imaginary letters from 



212 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Mr. Tristram Shandy to his friend Bob Busby, in which the 
young man claimed, in opposition to Sterne, that he had been 
regularly born, and appealed to Dr. Slop in proof of it. 

The merriment once begun, some one calling himself a 
Quaker by name Ebenezer Plain-Cloth, sent a letter to the 
editor in protest against the intrusion into public prints of 
"the frontless face" of Tristram Shandy. This is a speci- 
men of what Sterne might see on taking up a newspaper at 
any time for the rest of his life. Scribblers who required 
larger scope for their w T it resorted to shilling pamphlets 
running from forty to a hundred pages or more. Some of 
these pamphleteers adopted an abusive tone, wildly charging 
Sterne with various social and literary vices; while others 
imitated or burlesqued his book solely in the hope of making 
a few shillings out of its popularity. Of Sterne the man 
they knew nothing and cared nothing one way or the other. 
On reading the first of these lucubrations, Sterne remarked 
in a letter from London to Stephen Croft: "There is a 

shilling pamphlet wrote against Tristram 1 wish they 

would write a hundred such. ' ' But as one mill after another 
took to grinding out Shandy s, Sterne grew uneasy. "The 
scribblers", he began to complain, "use me ill, but they have 
used my betters much worse, for which may God forgive 
them." Finally, his nerves all shattered by three months 
of social dissipation, he fell into a semi-insane delusion, just 
as had occurred in the quarrel with his uncle, that a host 
of "profligate wretches" were setting upon him in the dark 
"with cuffs, kicks, and bastinadoes", that they might kill 
him with the public. In one of these moods he wrote to 
Warburton near the middle of June : " I wish from my heart 
I had never set pen to paper, but continued hid in the quiet 
obscurity in which I had so long lived; I was quiet, for I 
was below envy and yet above want." 

Heaven forbid that we should go far into the pamphlets 
which so worked upon Sterne that he was on the point of 
renouncing authorship, though the narrative might not be 
without entertainment. "God forgive me", he wrote to 
Miss Macartney, afterwards Lady Lyttelton, "God forgive 
me for the Volumes of Ribaldry I've been the cause of."* 

* Morgan Manuscripts. 



THE SERMONS OF MR. YORICK 213 

The pamphlet which Sterne wished, on first perusal, mul- 
tiplied a hundred-fold was The Clockmaker's Outcry against 
the Author of the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. 
According to the fiction of the elaborate jest, a number of 
London clockmakers, meeting casually at their club, fall foul 
of the notorious clock scene at the opening of Sterne's first 
volume. One of the members, indignant beyond the rest at 
the humourist's treatment of an honourable trade, takes up 
Tristram Shandy, incident by incident, and denounces all, 
even the death of poor Yorick, which, though praised for its 
pathos, is declared to be "intirely borrowed". Some one of 
the company, if I remember correctly, ventured to put in a 
word in favour of the clever "scale of beauty" which Mr. 
Shandy applied to his mock dedication to any lord who 
would pay for it. Swift came the retort from the inter- 
rupted speaker to the effect that nobody should be so ignor- 
ant as not to know that the scale was stolen from the 
ingenious Mr. Spence's Crito, or Dialogue on Beauty* As 
a whole, Tristram Shandy was pronounced to be nothing 
more than an imitation of A Tale of a Tub. Only there is 
this striking difference : Swift 's wit is never without aim, 
while Sterne drifts on helplessly from one poor jest to 
another still poorer until he reaches inanity. In concluding 
his discourse, the angry clockmaker charged Sterne with the 
ruin of his business by degrading a harmless and necessary 
piece of furniture. "The directions", he complained, "that 
I had for making several clocks for the country, are now 
countermanded; because no modest lady dares to mention a 
word about winding up a clock, without exposing herself to 
the * * * jokes of the family. * * * Alas, reputable, hoary 
clocks, that have flourished for ages are ordered to be taken 
down by virtuous Matrons and disposed of as # * * lum- 
ber. " The whimsical pamphlet bore an ironical dedication 
to "the humblest of Christian prelates", that is, to the 
ostentatious Warburton, who was taken to task for abetting 
Sterne's crime against society. 

About this time issued from another press Explanatory 

* So it was. See Spenee, Fugitive Pieces on Various Subjects, I, 43- 
45 (third edition, London 1771). 



214 LAURENCE STERNE 

Remarks upon the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy; 
wherein the Morals and Politics of the Piece are clearly laid 
open, by one who claimed to be the son of the physician 
whom Sterne had ridiculed in his seventh chapter. The 
brochure, which need not be described here, closed with an 
"Advertisement to the Nobility and Gentry of all Europe", 
containing some good raillery of Sterne's great reception. 
"As I expect", says the author, "in consequence of the fore- 
going work, to receive invitations on every hand for parties 

of pleasure, regales, dinners, and suppers in order to 

prevent confusion in my engagements, and that I may not 
make appointments with persons I am intirely ignorant of, 
I beg the world, with all convenient despatch, send their 
titles, names, and places of abodes, with cards to my book- 
seller's, that I may pay compliments to them, according to 
their different ranks; or, where upon a footing, according to 
their alphabetical succession. N. B. Such noblemen, &c. as 
chuse to give me testimony of their approbation of this book, 
by particular marks of their beneficence, will please to take 
notice, that no living, however lucrative, can be accepted as 
I am not in orders. t^p^I am particularly obliged to the 
managers of both the houses, whose kind intentions I already 
anticipate, in favouring me with the freedom of their respec- 
tive theatres, and they may depend upon my compliments to 

them in due time; but I am afraid I can not accept Mr. 

[Garrick] 's kind invitation to his house at Hampton this 
summer. ' ' 

After these two pamphlets came the deluge: The Life 
and Opinions of Miss Sukey Shandy, which cost two shillings 
or double the usual price; Tristram Shandy at Ranelagh, a 
miserable performance ; Tristram Shandy in a Reverie, 
"printed on the same Size as Tristram Shandy and very 
proper to be bound with it", containing a litter a infer nalis 
from the departed Yorick to his admirers on earth; Letter 
from a Methodist Preacher to Mr. Sterne; Letter from the 
Rev. George Whitfield, B.A., to the Rev. Laurence Sterne, 
M.A.; The Cream of Jest, or The Wits Outwitted * * * 
being an entire new Collection of droll Wit and Humour, 
written and collected by Corporal Trim during his Travels 



THE SERMONS OF ME, YORICK 215 

with Mr. Tobias Shandy, etc. etc. Something better than 
any in this list was Yorick's Meditations upon Various In- 
teresting and Important Subjects, * * * upon Nothing, upon 
Tobacco, upon Noses, upon the Man in the Moon, etc., for 
several reviewers took it to be really Yorick's, and the author 
of the tract received sufficient encouragement from the public 
to proceed with A Supplement to the Life and Opinions of 
Tristram Shandy, "the best ape", said the London Maga- 
zine, "of the original Shandy we have yet seen". A more 
elaborate continuation of Tristram Shandy appeared in Sep- 
tember from the pen of one John Carr, the translator of 
Lucian, and then or afterwards head-master of the Hertford 
grammar school. It seemed to the schoolmaster that it was 
time for Tristram to be born, and so he brought him into 
the world. Carr attempted to pass off his book as a genuine 
third volume of Tristram Shandy, but the critics quickly 
detected the fraud. From these and similar burlesques, 
criticisms, and forgeries, with which the London booksellers 
flooded the town, Sterne could find no escape even in his 
Yorkshire retreat. If he looked into a London or a local 
newspaper, there they were all advertised; if he strolled into 
a bookstall at York, there they stared him full in the face. 
All this trash and abuse suggested, however, to an unknown 
wit a practical jest that diverted Yorick exceedingly when 
he heard of it some years later; and when it was related to 
Dr. Johnson, it brought forth a rhinoceros laugh. A certain 
gentleman, asking a friend to lend him an amusing book 
from his private library, was recommended to try Hermes, 
a dry and technical treatise on universal grammar by the 
learned James Harris. "The gentleman from the title", so 
the anecdote goes, "conceived it to be a novel, but turning it 
over and over, could make nothing out of it, and at last 
coldly returned it with thanks. His friend asked him how 
he had been entertained. 'Not much', he replied, 'he thought 
that all these imitations of Tristram Shandy fell far short of 
the original.' "* 

* Joseph Cradoek, Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, I, 207-8 
{London, 1826) ; and G. B. Hill, Johnsonian Miscellanies, II, 70-71 
(London, 1897). 



216 LAUEENCE STEENE 

To have done with the scribblers who pestered Sterne 
with tags to his book, it is noticeable that he saw few men 
of letters while in London. The people who left their cards 
at the genteel rooms in St. Alban's Street and invited the 
popular author to their tables, necessarily lay outside the 
realm of literature, except for a patronising nobleman here 
and there, like Bathurst and Lyttelton. The men who were 
earning an honest living by their pens could afford of course 
no elaborate dinners; yet some of them might have made 
Sterne's acquaintance, had they so desired. A compliment 
to Rasselas in Tristram Shandy was an open bid for the 
friendship of Dr. Johnson; but Garrick never brought the 
two men together. And when they did meet by mere acci- 
dent more than a year later, it was with a clash of arms. 
Dr. Johnson and the rest were content to watch Sterne's 
progress through the mansions of the great and to make 
their comments thereon, occasionally in praise but more often 
in blame. For all the attentions lavished on him by rank 
and wealth, Sterne did not stand very well the test of the 
best critical opinion. Though he could not have known just 
what was being said of him in private companies and in the 
literary correspondence of the year, he was yet aware of a 
very hostile undercurrent. So in his sober moments, he was 
accustomed to liken himself, when complimented upon his 
prodigious run, to a fashionable mistress, whom everybody 
is courting because it is the fashion; but let a few weeks 
pass, and she will in vain ''solicit Corporal Stare for a 
dinner ' '. 

It was not quite so bad as Sterne would make out. 
Thomas Wharton, then at Old Park, near Durham, wrote to 
the poet Gray in praise of Tristram Shandy, and the Cam- 
bridge recluse said in reply: "There is much good fun in it, 
and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. I agree 
with your opinion of it and shall see the future volumes with 
pleasure."* On the other hand, Horace Walpole, in giving 
/Sir David Dalrymple of Edinburgh the literary news of the 
month, took occasion to say: "At present, nothing is talked 

* Letter to Wharton, July, 1760, in Works of Thomas Gray, edited 
by E. Gosse, III, 53 (London, 1885). 



THE SEEMONS OF ME. YOEICK 217 

of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very 
insipid and tedious performance : it is a kind of novel, called 
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy; the great 
humour of which consists in the whole narration always 
going backwards. I can conceive a man saying that it would 
be droll to write a book in that manner, but have no notion 
of his persevering in executing it. It makes one smile two or 
three times at the beginning, but in recompense makes one 
yawn for two hours."* "A fashionable thing", Walpole 
called Shandy in sending a parcel of books to Horace Mann 
at Florence ; and when he fell in with Sterne a few years 
later at Paris, he found the man's talk as tiresome as his 
writings. In neither, he said, was there anything to raise a 
laugh, though one were in a mood for laughter. 

Of men of letters, Goldsmith alone spoke out in print 
against Tristram Shandy. Not yet author of the Vicar of 
Wakefield, he was then contributing to the Public Ledger his 
Chinese Letters, since known as the Citizen of the World. 
Between Sterne and Goldsmith as they appear to-day, one is 
impressed more by real similarities than by surface differ- 
ences. Goethe, everybody knows, coupled the two names, in 
order to say that their genial humour and sane philosophy 
of life more than all else rescued him from Wertherian 
despair. But Goldsmith, all form, disliked the broken style 
of Sterne; and his imagination, immaculate as a maid's, 
could not endure Sterne's salacious wit. And so gathering 
up what gall there was in his white liver, he poured it forth 
on Tristram Shandy in his newspaper for June 30, and in 
subsequent issues, f From him may have come, indeed, the 
Ledger's imaginary letters to which we have previously 
referred. "I bought last season", said a London bookseller 
to Goldsmith's Chinaman, "a piece that had no other merit 
upon earth than nine hundred and ninety-five breaks, seventy- 
two ha ha's, three good things, and a garter. And yet it 
played off, and bounced, and cracked, and made more sport 
than a fire-work. * * * Ah, sir, that was a piece touched 

* Letter to Dalrymple, April 4, 1760, in Letters of Horace Walpole, 
edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, IV, 369 (Oxford, 1903). 

t For example, the Public Ledger, September 17, 1760. 






218 LAUKENCE STEENE 

off by the hand of a master, filled with good things from one 
end to the other. The author had nothing but the jest in 
view; no dull moral lurking beneath, nor ill-natured satire 
to sour the reader's good-humour; he wisely considered, that 
moral and humour at the same time were quite overdoing 
the business." At this point the visiting Oriental asked 
why such a book was published ; and he quickly received the 
reply: "Sir, the book was published in order to be sold; and 
no book sold better, except the criticisms upon it, which came 
out soon after." Sterne had revived, it was more directly 
alleged by Goldsmith, two obsolete forms of humour not 
much practised since Tom D'Urfey and his wretched crew. 
They may be called "bawdry and pertness", and "they are 
of such a nature, that the merest blockhead, by a proper use 
of them, shall have the reputation of a wit : they lie level 
to the meanest capacities, and address those passions which 
all have, or would be ashamed to disown". And finally of 
Sterne's style: "He must talk in riddles. * * * He must 
speak of himself, and his chapters, and his manner, and 
what he would be at, and his own importance, and his 
mother's importance, with the most unpitying prolixity; 
now and then testifying his contempt for all but himself, 
smiling without a jest, and without wit professing vivacity." 

Dr. Johnson, much as he despised Tristram Shandy, 
thought Goldsmith went too far in writing the author down 
a blockhead, though he had himself called Fielding a block- 
head. Not this year but with reference to another and 
similar season, Johnson remarked to Goldsmith one day: 
' ' The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for 
three months." "And a very dull fellow", added Gold- 
smith. "Why, no, Sir", replied Johnson, and the conversa- 
tion ended.* 

Strict moralists of narrower outlook than Dr. Johnson 
were enraged at Sterne's performance. Richard Farmer, 
then classical tutor at Cambridge, spoke sharply to a com- 
pany of students who in the very parlour of Emmanuel were 
expressing admiration of Tristram Shandy. "Mark my 

* Boswell 's Life of Br. Johnson, edited by Dobson, II, 44-45 (Lon- 
don, 1901). 



THE SERMONS OF MR. YORICK 219 

words", was his solemn prophecy, "and remember what I 
say to you; however much it may be talked about at present, 
yet, depend upon it, in the course of twenty years, should 
any one wish to refer to the book in question, he will be 
obliged to go to an antiquary to inquire for it."* Another 
storm centre was Delville House overlooking the harbour of 
Dublin, the residence of Mary Granville the Blue-Stocking, 
and her husband Patrick Delany, the Dean of Down and an 
old friend of Swift's. Faulkner, the Dublin bookseller, 
cried up Tristram Shandy to one of their clerical friends, 
and so they were on the brink of purchasing the book to read 
aloud by the fireside, when a note of warning arrived from 
Mrs. John Dewes, Mrs. Delany 's sister in England. Where- 
upon the dean became "very angry" with Sterne, and de- 
clared that the book should never enter his house. Mrs. 
Delany, accepting her husband's decision, was terribly 
alarmed that Tristram Shandy should have been received in 
the household of Robert Clayton, Bishop of Cork and Ross, 
whom it diverted more than offended. "Mrs. Clayton and 
I" she wrote to her sister by the middle of May, "had a 
furious argument about reading books of a bad tendency; 
I stood up for preserving a purity of mind, and discouraging 
works of that kind — she for trusting to her own strength 
and reason, and bidding defiance to any injury such books 
could do her. "t 

Anxiety was felt in still other remote places for the 
influence of Sterne upon the morals of the kingdom. Mark 
Hildesley, for example, Bishop of Sodor and Man, and some- 
time chaplain to Lord Bolingbroke, enquired in the postscript 
of a letter to Samuel Richardson : ' ' Pray, who is this Yorick ? 
(a prebendary of York, I know he is). But what say you to 
his compositions, that have of late commanded so much of 
the attention and admiration of the wits of the present age. 
I am told, they have the countenance and recommendation 

* B. N. Turner 's account of Dr. Johnson 's visit to Cambridge in 
1765, in the New Monthly Magazine and Universal Begister for Decem- 
ber, 1818; and Johnsonian Miscellanies, II, 429. 

t Mrs. Delany to Mrs. Dewes April 24, and May 14, 1760, in the 
Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany, 
first series, III, 588, 593 (London, 1861). 



220 LAUEENCE STEENE 

of some ingenious Dutchess: is this true or not?" Richard- 
son wrote back: "Who is this Yorick? you are pleased to ask 
me. You cannot, I imagine, have looked into his books: 
execrable I cannot but call them." And then, casting his 
more detailed opinion into the form of a letter from a young 
lady in London to her friend in the country, the novelist 
went on to say of Tristram Shandy: "It is, indeed, a little 
book, and little is its merit, though great has been the writer 's 
reward! Unaccountable wildness; whimsical incoherencies ; 
uncommon indecencies ; all with an air of novelty, has catched 
the reader's attention, and applause has flown from one to 
another, till it is almost singular to disapprove: Yet * * * 
if forced by friends, or led by curiosity, you have read, and 
laughed, and almost cried at Tristram, I will agree with you 
that there is subject for mirth, and some affecting strokes, 
* * * and I most admire the author for his judgment in 
seeing the town 's folly in the extravagant praises and favours 
heaped on him; for he says, he passed unnoticed by the 
world till he put on a fool's coat, and since that every body 
admires him ! ' ' After receiving Richardson 's strictures 
"upon the indelicately witty Yorick", the Bishop of Sodor 
and Man "accidentally read" some passages in the book and 
renamed it "Shameless Shandy."* 

Moralists and men of letters as far apart in temper as 
Richardson and Walpole, commonly excepted from their 
reprobation Yorick 's "excellent sermon of a peculiar kind 
on conscience", which Sterne had introduced into his book, 
as one of a handsome volume at the service of the public. 
Criticism like that which we have repeated, only less violent, 
had been passed upon Tristram Shandy, from its inception, 
by Sterne's clerical brethren at York who saw the manu- 
script. Out of this criticism came no doubt the idea of 
balancing his character, so to speak, by following up the 
book with a collection of his sermons. With this end in view, 
he seems to have packed a bundle of them along with his best 
clothes on that March morning when he set out for London 
with the squire of Stillington. The preliminary agreement 

* Mrs. A. L. Barbauld, Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, V, 
144-153 (London, 1804). 



THE SEEMONS OF MR. YORICK 221 

made with Dodsley a few days later was, it will be recalled, 
not only for a second edition of Tristram Shandy, but also 
for two volumes of sermons. After long delay and a con- 
tinuous stream of advertisements in the newspapers, The 
Sermons of Mr. Yorick made their appearance on the twenty- 
second of May, the week before their author stepped into his 
carriage for the journey homewards. The two volumes, 
containing fifteen sermons in the whole, were brought out 
in the form and type of Tristram Shandy, with the Reynolds 
portrait as engraved by Ravenet for frontispiece. There was 
a curious preface, written partly as an apology for the 
author 's pseudonym and for the haste with which the volumes 
had been put through the press, and partly to explain their 
character and to forestall a possible charge of plagiarism: 

"The sermon which gave rise to the publication of these, 
having been offer 'd to the world as a sermon of Yorick' s, I 
hope the most serious reader will find nothing to offend him, 
in my continuing these two volumes under the same title: 
lest it should be otherwise, I have added a second title page 

with the real name of the author : the first will serve the 

bookseller's purpose, as Yorick's name is possibly of the two 

the more known; and the second will ease the minds of 

those who see a jest, and the danger which lurks under it, 
where no jest was meant. * * * I have little to say in their 
behalf, except this, that not one of them was composed with 

any thoughts of being printed, they have been hastily 

wrote, and carry the marks of it along with them. — This may 

be no recommendation ; 1 mean it however as such ; for as 

the sermons turn chiefly upon philanthropy, and those kin- 
dred virtues to it, upon which hang all the law and the 
prophets, I trust they will be no less felt, or worse received, 
for the evidence they bear, of proceeding more from the 
heart than the head. I have nothing to add, but that the 
reader, upon old and beaten subjects, must not look for many 

new thoughts, 'tis well if he has new language; in three 

or four passages, where he has neither the one or the other, 

I have quoted the author I made free with there are some 

other passages, where I suspect I may have taken the same 
liberty, but 'tis only suspicion, for I do not remember it 



222 LAURENCE STERNE 

is so, otherwise I should have restored them to their proper 
owners, so that I put it in here more as a general saving, 
than from a consciousness of having much to answer for 
upon that score." 

The second title-page, which was added for the comfort 
of the clergy and professional moralists, ran: "Sermons by 
Laurence Sterne, A.M. Prebendary of York, and Vicar of 
Sutton on the Forest, and of Stillington near York." Be- 
tween the preface and the second title was printed a list of 
six hundred and sixty-one subscribers, which gathered in 
nearly every one worth knowing in the kingdom — dukes, 
duchesses, earls, and countesses; bishops, deans, university 
fellows, canons, and prebendaries; statesmen, politicians, and 
physicians; long rows of men who could write esquire after 
their names, and Mr. Charles Burney, Mr. Garrick, Mr. 
Hogarth, Mr. Reynolds, William Whitehead the Poet Lau- 
reate, and Mr. Wilkes, Member for Aylesbury. In reading 
through the list, one wonders what use could be made of 
sermons by Wilkes, the profane politician, or by playwrights, 
actors, and wits, like Beard and Rich and Delaval. But 
taken as a whole, it was a handsome troop of titles and names 
which Sterne could show to his Yorkshire friends in proof 
of his great and sudden fame. 

Sterne's sermons thus entered the world, guarded, as the 
author thought, with every precaution for their safety: no 
preface could be franker; no roll of patrons could be more 
impressive. But within a fortnight they were visited by a 
fierce assault from one of Griffiths 's men in the Monthly 
Review for May. The point of attack was not the character 
of the sermons themselves, but their appearance under the 
assumed name of Mr. Yorick. This manner of publication, 
the angry reviewer considered "as the greatest outrage 
against Sense and Decency, that has been offered since the 
first establishment of Christianity — an outrage which would 
scarce have been tolerated even in the days of paganism. 
* * * Fo r wno is this Yorick f We have heard of one of 
that name who was a Jester — we have read of a Yorick 
likewise, in an obscene Romance. But are the solemn dic- 
tates of religion fit to be conveyed from the mouths of 



THE SERMONS OF MR. YORICK 223 

Buffoons and ludicrous Romancers? Would any man believe 
that a Preacher was in earnest, who should mount the pulpit 
in a Harlequin's coat?" Likewise a venerable prelate 
remonstrated with Sterne for his unseemly conduct, protest- 
ing that ' ' he could not bear to look into sermons wrote by the 
king of Denmark's jester". The conversation that ensued, 
ending with Yorick's witty retort to the troubled ecclesias- 
tic, may be read in the Sentimental Journey: 

"Good my lord! said I; but there are two Yoricks. The 
Yorick your lordship thinks of has been dead and buried 
eight hundred years ago; he flourish 'd in Horwendillus 's 

court the other Yorick is myself, who have flourish 'd, my 

lord, in no court He shook his head Good God ! said I, 

you might as well confound Alexander the Great with 

Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord 'Twas all one, he 

replied. 

" If Alexander king of Macedon could have trans- 
lated your lordship, said I, I'm sure your lordship would 
not have said so." 

Aside from title and preface, the pretty volumes were 
greeted with universal praise. Even Griffiths 's man, bitter 
though he was at the outset, went through the sermons one 
by one in two issues of his magazine; and, carried away by 
the preacher's eloquence, he was ready to avow after the 
first volume: "We know of no compositions of this kind in 
the English language, that are written with more ease, purity, 
and elegance; and tho' there is not much of the pathetic 
or devotional to be found in them, yet there are many fine 
and delicate touches of the human heart and passions, which, 
abstractedly considered, shew marks of great benevolence 
and sensibility of mind. If we consider them as moral 
Essays, they are, indeed, highly commendable, and equally 
calculated for the entertainment and instruction of the 
attentive Reader." Smollett's man in the Critical Review 
for May apprehended that Yorick's name on the title-page 
might be an offence to moralists and bigots; but for himself 
he beheld with pleasure "this son of Comus descending from 
the chair of mirth and frolick, to inspire sentiments of piety, 
and read lectures in morality, to that very audience whose 



224 LATTEENCE STERNE 

hearts he has captivated with good-natured wit, and facetious 
humour. Let the narrow-minded bigot persuade himself 
that religion consists in a grave forbidding exterior and 
austere conversation; let him wear the garb of sorrow, rail 
at innocent festivity, and make himself disagreeable to 
become righteous ; we, for our parts, will laugh and sing, and 
lighten the unavoidable cares of life by every harmless 
recreation: we will lay siege to Namur with uncle Toby and 
Trim, in the morning, and moralize at night with Sterne and 
Yorick; in one word, we will ever esteem religion when 
smoothed with good humour, and believe that piety alone to 
be genuine, which flows from a heart, warm, gay, and social. ' ' 
The long panegyric was broken by only one discordant note. 
The reviewer thought that Sterne had carried his familiar 
style, almost uniformly beautiful in its simplicity, to excess 
in the famous sermon which opens with a denial of the text. 
It was undignified, all must agree, for the preacher to set 
his own wisdom against the wisdom of Solomon. 

The poet Gray, who understood the jest of the preacher 
exactly, enquired of his friend Thomas Wharton : ' ' Have you 
read his sermons (with his own comic figure at the head of 
them) ? they are in the style, I think, most proper for the 
pulpit, and shew a very strong imagination and a sensible 
heart: but you see him often tottering on the verge of 
laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of his 
audience."* Even some of the Delany-Granville set who 
would not take in Shandy, were almost persuaded by the 
sermons that they had misjudged the author. "Pray read", 
Lady Cowper enjoined Mrs. Dewes, " Yorick 's sermons, 
though you would not read Tristram Shandy. They are 
more like Essays. I like them extremely, and I think he 
must be a good man."f Dr. Johnson was among the very 
few who were never quite won over. On a visit to Lich- 
field, an old friend placed a volume of the sermons in his 
hand for an opinion. Johnson asked him whether he ever 
read any others. "Yes, Doctor", replied his friend, "I read 
Sherlock, Tillotson, Beveridge, and others." "Ay, Sir", 

* Letter to Wharton, July, 1760. 

t Autobiography and Correspondence, first series, III, 593. 



THE SEEMONS OF ME. YOEICK 225 

retorted Johnson, "there you drink the cup of Salvation to 
the bottom; here you have merely the froth from the sur- 
face." At another time Johnson nevertheless admitted that 
he had read Yorick's sermons while travelling in a stage 
coach ; but he added ' ' I should not have even deigned to look 
at them had I been at large. ' '* 

For some reason the notion has prevailed that Yorick's 
sermons were never really delivered; that they are only 
a bastard literary form, cast in a homiletic mould for the sake 
of publication. Sterne, however, made an explicit statement 
to the contrary. "Not one of them", said his preface, "was 
composed with any thoughts of being printed." Their pub- 
lication, as I have remarked once before, was clearly an 
afterthought — a late device, as it were, on Sterne's part 
for averaging himself up with the public, and, I may add 
now, for laying a further tax upon the nobility and gentry 
of the realm. Besides his two parishes, Sterne had held for 
twenty years a prebend in York Cathedral. Twice every 
year — on the sixth Sunday in Lent and the nineteenth Sun- 
day after Trinity — he drove in from Sutton to take his turns 
at the minster, and at various other times to supply the places 
of his brethren, especially of his friend Dean Fountayne, 
who, according to the usual arrangements, was appointed to 
preach the sermon for All Saints. The young prebendary, 
eager for preferment, liked this work, for it kept him before 
the public — and put every year twenty guineas into his 
purse. By 1760, he seems to have had by him thirty-odd 
sermons, carefully written out and laid aside, most of which 
had been prepared for the cathedral pulpit, and two of them 
for unusual occasions. From this convenient repertory were 
selected without doubt the fifteen that went into print. 

In making up the volumes for the press, some caution 
was needed on Sterne's part, due to his habit of drawing 
freely from the great preachers of the past. His chief model, 
despite Dr. Johnson's contrast between them, was Archbishop 
Tillotson, whom Sterne had read at the university and kept 
by him ever since. Next to Tillotson was Dr. Edward Young, 
Dean of Sarum and father of the poet, whose sermons were 

* Johnsonian Miscellanies, II, 429. 
15 



226 LAUEENCE STERNE 

likewise a Cambridge book. Near them lay also, in Sterne's 
estimation, Dr. Joseph Hall, the unfortunate Bishop of Nor- 
wich back in the reign of Charles the Second, whose Decades 
and Contemplations could be easily expanded into sermons. 
Besides these three, there rested on Sterne's shelf several 
other divines who were occasionally taken down and placed 
on his desk during the process of composition. From any 
one of them he might work out a sermon acceptable to his 
congregation, repeating and amplifying the original as much 
as he liked. But the issue under his own name of patch- 
works or paraphrases was a thing to be avoided. 

For his future guidance it was the custom of the imagi- 
nary Yorick, says Mr. Tristram Shandy, "on the first leaf 
of every sermon which he composed, to chronicle down the 
time, the place, and the occasion of its being preached: to 
this, he was ever wont to add some short comment or stric- 
ture upon the sermon itself, seldom, indeed, much to its 
credit : — For instance, JThis sermon upon the Jewish dis- 
pensation 1 don't like it at all; Though I own there 

is a world of WATER-LANDISH knowledge in it, out 

His all tritical, and most tritically put together. This is 

but a flimsy kind of a composition; what was in my head 
ivhen I made it? 

"N.B. The excellency of this text is, that it will suit any 

sermon, and of this sermon, that it will suit any 

text. 

" For this sermon I shall be hanged, for I have 



stolen the greatest part of it. Doctor Paidagunes found me 

out. fl^T'Set a thief to catch a thief. " 

This was also Sterne's custom as attested by Isaac Reed, 
the editor of Shakespeare, who saw the manuscript of two 
of Sterne's sermons and copied out the whimsical remarks 
sprawled across them. At the end of one bearing the title 
"Our Conversation in Heaven" was the endorsement: "Made 
for All Saints and preach 'd on that Day 1750 for the Dean. 

Present: one Bellows Blower, three Singing Men, one 

Vicar and one Residentiary. Memorandum: Dined with 

Duke Humphrey." At the end of the other, entitled "The 
Ways of Providence Justified to Man", Sterne wrote: "I 



THE SERMONS OF ME. YORICK 227 

have borrowed most of the Reflections upon the Characters 
from Wollaston, or at least have enlarged from his hints, 
though the Sermon is truly mine such as it is."* And to the 
comment on the first of the two, the preacher might have 
added that the text and much else had been taken from 
Tillotson on "The Happiness of a Heavenly Conversation". 

These two sermons Sterne cast aside for the present ; but 
it was difficult for him to find fifteen which showed no traces 
of his borrowings. "Job's Account of the Shortness and 
Troubles of Life" went in with the original memorandum 
printed as a footnote: "N.B. Most of these reflections upon 
the Miseries of Life are taken from Wollaston", that is, from 
the widely read Religion of Nature. "Evil Speaking", 
though mainly a restatement of Tillotson "Against Evil 
Speaking", passed muster after a casual reference to the 
witty archbishop. "Joseph's History" acknowledged a 
paraphrase from Steele's Christian Hero, but forgot Hall's 
"Contemplation on Joseph" out of which the sermon had been 
elaborated. It likewise seems to have slipped the preacher's 
mind that the charity sermon on "Elijah and the Widow of 
Zarephath" contained literal repetitions from Hall's "Elijah 
at Sarepta". To cover these and all other cases where notes 
or memory failed him, Sterne regarded as sufficient the gen- 
eral apology of his preface. It was of course not necessary 
for him to inform the public that the sermon on "Self- 
Knowledge" was merely a dilution of the one on "The 
Abuses of Conscience", which everybody had read in 
Shandy; for when a man has once said a good thing, there 
can be no harm in his repeating it. Doctor Paidagunes 
could find no fault with an author for doing that. 

Quite as interesting as what Sterne said or omitted to say 
about the old divines who collaborated, as it were, with him 
on his sermons, are his notes on time and place of delivery. 
"The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath" was 

* These remarks were copied by Reed into a volume containing 
Sterne's first two sermons., published at York in 1747 and 1750 respect- 
ively. The volume is now owned by Mr. W. A. White of New York 
City. The sermon on Penances, now in the library of J. Pierpont Mor- 
gan, Esq., has the following memorandum at the end: "Preached April 
8th, 1750. Present: Dr. Herring, Dr. Wanly, Mr. Berdmore." 



228 LAUEENCE STEENE 

delivered, as we remember, at St. Michael-le-Belfrey before 
the charity schools of York on Good Friday, 1747, and pub- 
lished soon after. "Very few" read, said a new advertise- 
ment, this eloquent sermon, which the author placed among 
the best. "The Character of Herod", a footnote explained, 
was preached on Innocents' Day, presumably in the minster 
for the Dean of York. m l ' The Pharisee and Publican in the 
Temple" was, in like manner, assigned to Lent, when the 
preacher came in to take his turn as Prebendary of North 
Newbald. To the same season belongs also, as the footnote 
again expressly declares, "The House of Feasting and the 
House of Mourning", one of Sterne's most brilliant studies 
in contrast. Many have believed that this sermon at least, 
whatever may be said of the rest, could never have been 
delivered. But the evidence all points to the contrary. It 
is almost a certainty that Sterne, rising into the cathedral 
pulpit on his Sunday in Lent, near the close of his residence 
at Sutton, and reading from Ecclesiastes, proceeded forth- 
with to attack the truth of his text with the startling phrase 
' ' That I deny ' '. Except that it may be ' ' fruitful in virtue ' ', 
declared the preacher in conclusion, "Sorrow # * * has no 

use but to shorten a man's days nor can gravity, with all 

its studied solemnity of look and carriage, serve any end but 
to make one half of the world merry, and impose upon the 
other". 

Other notable sermons, like the one on happiness or its 
companion on philanthropy, were included without a note; 
perhaps because Sterne looked upon them as wholly his own 
and as suitable for any day in the church calendar. But if 
we had the full secret of these and the rest, we should doubt- 
less find that they were published practically as they had 
been written at sundry times for his cathedral congregation. 
This is not to say that he did not make many minor changes 
in them as they were going through the press, adding or 
dropping out words, phrases, and clauses here and there to 
the advantage of his style. Such was his method, as we may 
see by comparing the three printed versions which we have 
of the sermon on conscience. "That I deny", it may be, 
was an afterthought in place of a more general repudiation 



THE SERMONS OF MR. YORICK 229 

of Solomon. But that Sterne's revision of his sermons for 
Dodsley went beyond details is really impossible. Had he 
wished it, there was no time for rewriting them during the 
months he was in London marching from one great house 
to another. 

Taking Sterne's first sermons as they stand, with all their 
faults and with all their commonplaces repeated out of 
Tillotson and others, they fully deserved the applause that 
attended their publication. Some of them could not have 
been very effective as spoken discourses. At times, we know, 
Sterne failed utterly as a preacher. When it was his turn 
to preach in the minster, "half of the Congregation", says 
John Croft, "usually went out of the Church as soon as he 
mounted the Pulpit, as his Delivery and Voice were so very 
disagreeable". This we can well understand in the case of 
the more perfunctory sermons wherein the preacher made no 
effort to keep his congregation awake. But it was not always 
so. On special occasions, when he brought to bear upon his 
theme all the resources of an eloquent rhetoric, he filled 
church or cathedral and "gave great content to every hearer". 
According to a stor} 7 which Sterne himself is reported to 
have related to a company of fellow clergymen, he was 
addressed one Sunday, as he was descending from the cathe- 
dral pulpit, by a poor widow sitting on the steps. She 
enquired of him where she might have the honour of hearing 
him preach on the next Sunday. After she had followed 
him about to his great discomfort for a succession of Sundays 
from one church to another, always taking the same position 
on the steps of the pulpit and always asking the same ques- 
tion, he finally chose as his text, modifying Holy Writ, the 
words: "I will grant the request of this poor widow, lest 
by continual coming she weary me." "Why, Sterne", 
immediately retorted one of the company, "you omitted the 

most applicable part of the passage, which is, Though I 

neither fear God nor regard man." "The unexpected re- 
tort", it was added, "silenced the wit for the whole 
evening."* 

* Rev. John Adams, Elegant Anecdotes and Bon Mots, 267-268 (Lon- 
don, 1790). 



230 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Uneven as they are for the pulpit, most of Sterne's ser- 
mons are admirable for the closet. In one of their aspects, 
they were correctly described by contemporary reviewers as 
brief moral essays, any one of which may be easily read in 
fifteen minutes, or an entire volume at a sitting. After it is 
all over, a reader lays aside the book in a gentle frame of 
mind, having been soothed for two hours by a quiet and 
not too insistent optimism. He has been disturbed by noth- 
ing doctrinal, by no undue religious fervour, and by little 
religious cant — that jargon of the pulpit compounded of ill- 
understood and ill-related Biblical metaphors. If a passage 
becomes dull now and then, it is succeeded by a gay thrust 
at the Church of Rome, a flash of humour, or an apt quota- 
tion from Shakespeare, - Epicurus, or Plutarch. Walter 
Bagehot, unfortunately one of the last, I suppose, to look 
through Sterne's sermons, was disappointed to find that 
''there is not much of heaven and hell" in them. "Auguste 
Comte", he went on to say, "might have admitted most of 
these sermons; they are healthy statements of earthly truths, 
but they would be just as true if there was no religion at 
all; * * * if the 'valuable illusion ' of a deity were omitted 
from the belief of mankind."* What the astute critic said 
is somewhere near the truth; and the statement is to their 
favour, though it was not meant to be so. Sterne could have 
given no offence to the deists of his age. In fact, he asso- 
ciated with them and prepared — as will be duly related — one 
sermon especially for a famous group of them. He preached 
a sort of common-sense philosophy, which, if it had little to 
do with Christian dogmas, never contradicted them. The 
evil and disorder in the world was as apparent to him as to 
the philosophers; he yet believed implicitly in the essential 
goodness of human nature and in the wise and just ways of 
Providence. The author of Yorick's sermons, said Lady 
Cowper, must be after all a good man; certainly a good 
man, if he followed his own instruction. 

Apart from their excellent morality, Sterne aptly called 
his sermons "dramatic". Very likely he had in mind to 
some extent the breaks and pauses of the preacher and his 
* Bagehot, Literary Studies, II, 111 (London, 1879). 



THE SERMONS OF MR. YORICK; 231 

direct addresses to Solomon, to St. Paul, or to God Himself 
in the course of the delivery; with all of whom he professed 
to disagree, though in the end he would come to the con- 
clusion that the Scriptures, if properly interpreted, were 
probably in the right. But Sterne was more than an actor. 
His best sermons are embryonic dramas, in which an effort 
is made to visualise scene and character, as though he were 
writing for the stage. Everywhere a lively imagination is 
at work on the Biblical narrative. If the preacher wishes 
to vindicate human nature against the charge of selfishness, 
he simply portrays the life of an average man, like scores 
in his congregation, from boyhood through youth, and 
through manhood on to old age, and lets the proof of his 
thesis rest with the portrait. No one who has heard or read 
the sermon is disposed to doubt the text that "none of us 
liveth to himself ' '. If time and change be the theme, then 
again are brought on the imaginary stage the careers of two 
men — the one successful and the other unsuccessful, as the 
world views them — with a final justification, when the drama 
broadens, of God's dealings with His children. Human 
nature, the preacher may assert, is so inconstant that we can 
never know what a man will do. The statement may be a 
commonplace to every one in his congregation; but the com- 
monplace is forgotten in Sterne's illustration of it through 
a whole series of portraits drawn with a few strokes from 
his own experience and observation. Sometimes a sermon 
consists of a single character-sketch rendered in full detail; 
it may be Job or Herod. Again, for a study in contrast, two 
characters run along parallel to each other, like Nathan and 
David, or the Pharisee and the Publican in the Temple. 
Scenes of this kind Sterne, avoiding all abstractions, realised 
completely and triumphantly. True, the psychology was 
crude, but so was all the psychology of the age. Complex 
human nature can not be summed up in Pope's neat doctrine 
of ruling passions, which was accepted by Sterne. It does 
not explain Solomon to call him "a reformed sensualist", 
nor Herod to conclude that ambition was the first spring of 
his character, which, so to speak, put into motion all the 
other wheels. But under Sterne's hand the method resulted 



232 LAURENCE STERNE 

in most striking portraits. For setting forth the character 
of these and other men in Scripture, Sterne frequently im- 
personated them, spoke as he fancied they must have spoken, 
giving their points of view, their reasons for their conduct, 
in conversation or in monologue. In this dramatic manner 
the man of Jericho, for example, soliloquises for a half page 
and more after he had been passed by, "friendless and 
unpitied", by priest and Levite; and the Samaritan paused 
over the unfortunate traveller for a still longer meditation 
before deciding to "soften his misfortunes by dropping a 
tear of pity over them". Everywhere Sterne thus lets his 
imagination play upon the few details furnished him by 
Scripture, building up scenes and characters just as Shake- 
speare knew how to do from an incident or two out of Holin- 
shed. Sometimes, as in "The House of Feasting and the 
House of Mourning", a beautiful allegorical veil hangs over 
the drama, under which we pass through scenes alternating 
with joy and sorrow, depicted with perfect art. This 
dramatic discourse is Sterne's most complete allegory of 
human life. 

Safe to say, no more readable collection of sermons came 
from the press of the eighteenth century, and none with a 
clearer stamp of literature upon them. 



CHAPTER X 

SHANDY HALL. TRISTRAM SHANDY: 

VOLUMES III AND IV 

JUNE 1760— MAY 1761 

Taking several sets of sermons along with him for friends 
and subscribers in the north, Sterne left London for York — 
in his own carriage drawn by his own horses, as we have 
seen him — on Monday the twenty-sixth of May. Driving 
leisurely, he should have made his smart entry through 
Micklegate before nightfall of the following Thursday, in 
ample time to appear in the pulpit of St. Peter's on Sunday. 
During his absence, his wife and daughter had occupied 
lodgings in the Minster Yard. Mrs. Sterne, he found on 
returning, had recovered from the delusion that she was the 
Queen of Bohemia, despite sore trouble with the daughter 
left in her charge. The schoolmates of Lydia, says John 
Croft, had plagued and taunted her, since her father's book 
came out, with the name of Miss Tristram and Miss Shandy. 
In revenge, she wrote love letters to the girls who thus 
annoyed her, under the signatures of the several players of 
the York company. As she had anticipated, many of the 
letters were intercepted by parents and guardians, with the 
result that the girls were flogged or shut up in dark 
closets or otherwise severely punished. But as she had not 
anticipated, the practical joke cast so great a slur on the 
theatre, that the players were compelled to take up the mat- 
ter and ferret out the person who was playing fast and loose 
with their names. The discovery must have thoroughly 
humiliated Mrs. Sterne, who was always anxious for the good 
report of her daughter. It was, however, a piece of childish 
mischief that could not have greatly troubled the author of 
Tristram Shandy. 

Before moving out to Coxwold, Sterne remained at York 

238 



234 LAURENCE STERNE 

with his wife and daughter for three weeks for business and 
recreation. It was incumbent upon him, first of all, to make 
provision for the spiritual welfare of the parishes which he 
was leaving for higher preferment. In the case of Sutton, 
with whose squire he was mostly at variance, he barely fulfilled 
his obligations. On coming into York for the previous win-j 
ter, he had placed over that parish one Marmaduke Collier, 
who stayed on at a salary, as subsequently fixed, of £16 a 
year and the use of the parsonage house for residence. This 
cheap curate, who never attained to the dignity of a license, 
held his office solely on a private arrangement with Sterne 
as Yicar of Sutton. Much to the vicar's amusement, as 
well as to the loss of his library and some furniture, Collier 
eventually ran away, after accidentally setting fire to the par- 
sonage and burning it to the ground. Stillington, the seat of 
Stephen Croft, naturally fared much better. In charge of 
this parish was entrusted another Marmaduke — Marmaduke 
Callis — who had served as minister in other churches in 
the diocese. On Sterne's formal presentation of his name to 
the Dean and Chapter of York, Callis received a license to the 
curacy — after some delay, to be sure — on September 26, 1761 ; 
and Sterne generously agreed to pay him an annual stipend 
of £40, or the entire income of the living.* 

There was necessary also some readjustment of the mort- 
gage on the Tindall farm at Sutton, previously held by Wil- 
liam Shaw, who, it would appear, had recently died. For 
by lease and release, f dated the second and third days of 
June, 1760, Sterne, jointly with John and Timothy Place, 
linen drapers of the city of London, who appear in later 
records among heirs to William Shaw, conveyed this prop- 
erty to Elizabeth Thompson, widow, of Holtby, a neighbour- 
ing parish. Though the transaction can not be precisely 
cleared up, it was, without much doubt, a transfer of the 
Shaw mortgage to Mrs. Thompson. At this time or a little 
later, the two dwellings and half of the lands which had been 
assigned to Sterne under the Sutton Enclosure Act, were 

* The appointments of Callis and Collier are recorded in the Institu- 
tions of the Diocese of York. 

t Registered at Northallerton. 



SHANDY HALL 235 

leased to one Benjamin Shepherd, who also, it is likely, was 
"the promising tenant" that Sterne found. for the Tindall 
farm two years before. Several other fields from the same 
award were leased to one Robert Mozeen. All this and other 
business incident to a change of residence was quickly con- 
cluded, and by the middle of June, Sterne had assumed the 
duties of his new parish. 

Coxwold, where Sterne soon brought his family, lies seven 
or eight miles to the north of Stillington on the edge of the 
moors. The village straggles up a long and rather steep hill 
and loses itself at the top as one travels westward towards 
Thirsk, eight miles away. Well up the hill on the left stands 
the pretty church of St. Michael, overlooking village and 
valley; and beyond the church, on the right, close to the 
roadside, is the house which Sterne used for residence and 
named Shandy Castle or Shandy Hall. Though now made 
over into cottages for labourers, it is still, as in Sterne's time, 
a strange-looking gabled structure, as if it were once a 
cloister which someone far back turned into a dwelling — low, 
rambling, and dark, with a huge irregular stone chimney 
buttressing the eastern end. It is the very house, one would 
say, with its nooks and corners and surprises, from which 
should issue a book like Tristram Shandy. "A sweet retire- 
ment", Sterne called it, where a jaded clergyman might take 
up his rest. For years he had longed to leave the York 
valley, which aggravated his cough and asthma. Now he 
had but to step into the garden at the rear of Shandy Hall, 
and there lay before him a wide sweep of the Hambleton 
Hills. He doubtless missed the intimate society of the 
Crofts; but near-by lived the master of the Coxwold gram- 
mar school, and within a mile or two was the seat of Lord 
Fauconberg, his friend and patron. 

Once settled in Shandy Hall, Sterne was ready to proceed 
rapidly with his book. The main lines that the story was to 
take had been designed the previous year, and several of the 
anecdotes, like the birth and the misnaming of the hero, 
there are reasons for thinking, may have been then written 
out, but afterwards cut away in order to bring the first two 
volumes into a compass narrow enough to fit his purse or to 



236 LAURENCE STERNE 

please Dodsley. But anything from Shandy Hall was now 
sure of a market ; and Sterne was so eager to lay a new tax 
on the public that he sat down to his papers at York before 
moving over to Cox wold. The new instalment of Tristram 
Shandy was resumed in earnest when he reached his parish; 
and we may, if we like, easily obtain a few glimpses of him 
at work through the summer and well on into the autumn. 
His study, as a visitor enters the narrow hallway of Shandy 
Castle, was a small room to the right, from the door of which 
one still looks upon the yawning fireplace of the great stone 
chimney. By the window stood in Sterne's day a plain deal- 
table with pen and inkwell, before which the author, in loose 
slippers and old dressing gown, took his seat in a cane chair, 
having a back that ran up into ornamental knobs, symbolis- 
ing, in Sterne's fancy, wit and discretion. Across the table 
and along the chimney-piece were strewn books which he had 
brought from his library at Sutton as most useful in compos- 
ing the new Shandys. We can still read the titles of some 
of them as clearly as if we now saw them. There lay, for 
instance, Rabelais in Ozell's translation, Burton's Anatomy, 
Locke on the Human Understanding, and the famous Textus 
Rojfensis, containing the solemn anathemas of the Church 
of Eome. Before Sterne had long been at work, books, table, 
and floor were spattered with ink, for he was a sloven with his 
pen, thrusting it nervously into the inkhorn and then drop- 
ping it upon himself or upon the floor on the way to his 
paper. The act of composition was to him a sort of obses- 
sion, during the strenuous period of which he imagined a 
host of quaint demons grinning and clawing at his head 
and filling the room, just as we see them in old prints. When 
the fit was on, he could write almost continuously through 
the day — at will, he used to claim, before meals or after 
meals, dressed or undressed, clean shaven or in neglected 
beard. But he was unable to smoke while composing and 
rarely at other times ; ' ' inasmuch as ' ' — he said in reply to a 
conjecture that humour so "refined" as his must be hatched 
out by tobacco, — "inasmuch as the fumes thereof do con- 
coct my conceits too fast so that they would be all torn to 
rags before they could be well served up".* Sometimes, it 
* Morgan Manuscripts. 



SHANDY HALL 237 

is a local tradition, Sterne would issue forth from Shandy 
Hall at a great rate, and half way down the hill would come 
to a sudden stop, and then rush back to his study to note 
down some fancy before it could escape him. And so it went 
on for weeks, until his brains became "as dry as a squeezed 
orange" and he had "no more conceit in him than a mallet". 

Hardly had Sterne set pen to paper this summer, when 
there arrived a disconcerting note from Warburton, hinting 
at personal and literary indiscretions the past winter and 
warning him to be on his guard in the future. The bishop, 
not exactly divining Sterne's talent, wished him to compose 
a series of trifles, at once playful and moral, such as could 
do no harm to their author and might instruct as well as 
amuse the reader. On receiving Warburton 's letter, Sterne 
felt like throwing aside his manuscripts forever, and falling 
back into the humdrum duties of a country parson. But 
that was only a momentary impulse. Quickly regaining his 
emotional poise, he courteously thanked the bishop for his 
"kind and most friendly advice", and added: "Be assured, 
my Lord, that willingly and knowingly I will give no offence 
to any mortal by anything which I think can look like the 
least violation either of decency or good manners, and yet, 
with all the caution of a heart void of offence or intention 
of giving it, I may find it very hard, in writing such a book 
as Tristram Shandy, to mutilate everything in it down to the 
prudish humour of every particular. I will, however, do my 

best though laugh, my Lord, I will, and as loud as I 

can too." 

Warburton, elated by the reformation of Sterne, hastened 
to reply: "It gives me real pleasure (and I could not but 
trouble you with these two or three lines to tell you so) that 
you are resolved to do justice to your genius, and to borrow 
no aids to support it, but what are of the party of honour, 
virtue, and religion. You say you will continue to laugh 
aloud. In good time. But one who was no more than even 
a man of spirit would choose to laugh in good company; 
where priests and virgins may be present. * * * * I would 
recommend a maxim to you which Bishop Sherlock formerly 
told me Dr. Bentley recommended to him, that a man was 



238 LAUEENCE STEENE 

never writ out the reputation he had once fairly won, but by 
himself. ' ' 

In the end, Sterne had only contempt for the advice with 
which Warburton was pestering him, and made a jest of it in 
conversation with his friends. No obstacle could stand in 
the way of his giving free utterance to what his attendant 
demons suggested to him, irrespective of the censures of the 
grave. Let his critics say what they might, he would write 
for that audience, be it great or small, who could be counted 
on to relish genuine humour. "I shall be attacked and 
pelted", he wrote to Stephen Croft, "either from cellars or 

garrets, write what I will and besides, must expect to 

have a party against me of many hundreds— who either 

do not — or will not laugh. Tis enough if I divide the 

world; at least I will rest contented with it." With his 

mind thus made up, Sterne placed at the head of his manu- 
script a Latin sentence which he had seen in Ozell's Rabelais* 
from John of Salisbury, the great churchman and humanist 
of the twelfth century. "I have no fear", to paraphrase 
the Latin as Sterne adroitly modified it to his own purpose, 
"I have no fear of the opinions of those unskilled in these 
matters; but pray none the less that they spare my lucubra- 
tions, in the which it has ever been my aim to run from the 
gay to the serious and backwards from the serious to the 
gay." 

The gay mood was to prevail mostly in the new volumes, 
which, among many things, tell of Mr. Walter Shandy's 
favourite hypotheses and how his expectations from them 
come to naught in the misfortunes that befall his son Tris- 
tram immediately after birth. Beginning where he had left 
off the year before, Sterne resumed the evening conversa- 
tions between the two Shandys and Dr. Slop in the back 
parlour of the imaginary Shandy Hall, not to be confounded, 
as has been done so often, with Sterne's own habitation. In 
a bedroom upstairs lay Mrs. Shandy attended by the parish 
midwife and Susannah the housemaid. In the kitchen sat a 
group of idle servants, listening for the cry of a child from 

* Works of Francis Rabelais, revised by Ozell, vol. I, p. cxx (London, 
1737). 



SHANDY HALL 239 

above. For some moments there had been a lull in the con- 
versations of the back parlour. Walter Shandy had delivered 
a formal speech on the dangers that threaten a child's head 
at birth, and my uncle Toby was whistling Lillabullero in 
amazement at the alarming narrative, when a tramping was 
heard overhead near the bedside of Mrs. Shandy. Dr. Slop 
hurriedly took up his ' ' green bays bag ' ' containing his instru- 
ments of torture, but found alas! that Obadiah had tied its 
mouth in a dozen hard knots for the safety of its precious 
contents. In vain he tried to unloose the intricate "round- 
abouts" and "cross turns" which Obadiah had drawn with 
all the might of his hands and teeth; and then calling in 
desperation for a penknife to cut them, he thereby cut also 
his thumb to the bone. Whereupon he began "stamping, 
cursing and damning at Obadiah at a dreadful rate". My 
uncle Toby, who had not the heart to curse the devil himself 
with so much bitterness, suspended his whistling, and Mr. 
Shandy rebuked the profane doctor for unduly wasting his 
strength and soul's health by heavy cursing over small 
accidents. Instead of being so profane on trivial occasions, 
it would be much better, Mr. Shandy tried to persuade him, 
for a man who must curse to heed the example of a gentle- 
man of his acquaintance, "who, in distrust of his own dis- 
cretion, * * * sat down and composed (that is at his leisure) 
forms of swearing suitable to all cases, from the lowest to 
the highest provocation that could happen to him, * * * 
and kept them ever by him on the chimney-piece, within 
his reach ready for use". Dr. Slop, who had never heard 
of the ingenious gentleman, became so interested in the 
anecdote that Mr. Shandy offered to show him a similar 
document, on condition that he should read it aloud before 
going upstairs. The doctor readily agreeing, Mr. Shandy 
forthwith reached up to the chimney-piece and gravely 
handed the Popish physician an authentic copy of the 
form of excommunication prepared for the English clergy 
by Ernulf, a learned Roman Bishop of Rochester in the old 
days. With wry face over an aching thumb tied up in the 
corner of his handkerchief, Dr. Slop was compelled to read 
through the terrible anathema, to the full discovery that it 



240 LAURENCE STERNE 

was not necessary to go outside his own church for an art 
and a gradation in cursing such as he had never dreamed of. 
Set beside the old bishop's copious profanity, the most vio- 
lent oaths hitherto at his command, he was made to see, were 
tame and insipid, unworthy of the fine of five shillings which 
the government would inflict upon a gentleman for each 
petty offence. 

His vocabulary of cursing enriched out of Ernulf's 
digest, Dr. Slop received an urgent summons above stairs 
from the frightened midwife; and the two Shandys, growing 
weary over a discourse on time and eternity, fell asleep as 
they sat in their easy armchairs by the fire. The two tired 
brothers would have slept on through the night, had they not 
been awakened by the creak of a rusty door-hinge, announc- 
ing the entrance of Trim to inform them that Dr. Slop had 
come down to the kitchen to make a pasteboard bridge for 
poor Tristram's broken nose. With a deep and agonising 
sigh, the grief -stricken father staggered to his feet, extending 
a hand, as he did so, to my uncle Toby, who led him silently 
to his bed, where he might best digest his affliction, as 
everybody knows, by lying flat upon his face, with an arm 
and leg dangling upon the floor. To understand, says 
Sterne, why the sad mishap to Tristram caused so great grief 
in his father, it must be explained that the elder Shandy 
had staked all on his son's nose. It had long been a settled 
conviction of his that a long nose, besides being a useful 
ornament to the face, was also a forecast of character and 
distinction in life; while a short or flat nose, like the ace of 
clubs that disfigured the countenance of his great-grand- 
father, meant as surely misfortunes and disgraces against 
which no man could ever bear up, whatever might be his 
other endowments of body or mind. 

Mr. Shandy had derived his whimsical notion from wide 
observation on the rise and fall of the best county families 
and from a multitude of curious treatises that touched upon 
the theme. But the one that had been of most profit to him 
was a learned folio by the German Slawkenbergius, who 
devoted his life to the philosophy of the nose. Unlike all 
the other books, this one contained merry tales — a hundred 



SHANDY HALL 241 

of them — written out in the purest Latin, to illustrate and 
enforce the scholar's doctrine in its hundred-fold divisions. 
Of the two or three tales that Mr. Shandy always read with 
much delight, Sterne relates one that hinges upon the dis- 
order and confusion caused among the inhabitants of Strass- 
burg by the appearance one summer evening of a stranger 
who entered their gates, riding upon a mule and guarding with 
a drawn scimitar an immense nose which he had obtained 
(so he told the sentinel) at the Promontory of Noses. For 
some time, says Sterne, there had been no great and vital 
question in dispute between the Roman Catholic and 
Protestant universities at Strassburg, but now one of the 
finest was thrown at their heads. Taking sides, logicians 
and theologians proved and disproved through long and 
acrimonious debate, each faculty using its own appropriate 
jargon, that the stranger's nose was a real nose, that it was 
only a pasteboard nose, and that it was no nose at all, as if 
the affair were of as great moment as the altercation which 
divided the universities over the point in Martin Luther's 
damnation — whether the founder of Protestantism was damned 
to all eternity by the conjunction of the planets at his birth, 
and whether, the affirmative being proven, "his doctrines by 
direct corollary must be damned doctrines too". Slawken- 
bergius and his merry folio were, of course, pure fictions 
elaborated by Sterne for puzzling his learned public. The 
fanciful allegory of a land where one may purchase noses 
after his heart, was built up by Sterne mostly from a few 
hints out of Ozell's Rabelais, which lay at his elbow.* 

The long digression on Slawkenbergius gave Mr. Shandy 
time to recover his grief in sufficient measure to converse and 
use his reason once more. No sooner had he reached that 
stage than he fell back upon another hypothesis whose aid 
might be yet invoked to save his son, disfigured and dis- 
graced as he was by Dr. Slop's obstetric hand. For next to 
a man's nose, the squire held, with the old writers on his 
shelves, that a man's character and conduct all depend upon 
the name he happens to bear. Judas, do what he might, 
could have been only the traitor that he was; whereas Caesar 

* See "the fair of noses' ' in Ozell's Bdbelais, I, 317. 
16 



242 LAURENCE STERNE 

and Alexander conquered the world quite as much by the 
magic of their names as by their valour. Jack, Dick, and 
Tom, "like equal forces acting against each other in con- 
trary directions", he also often affirmed, were neutral or 
indifferent names, numbering since the world began as many 
knaves and fools as wise and good men. It had been his 
intention to call his son George or Edward, which though 
not the best names, stood rather high in his estimation as the 
titles of kings and princes, But to offset the broken nose, 
it was now necessary to choose the most potent name in his 
repertory, else his son would grow into a driveller and goose- 
cap. And so he resolved to christen him after Trismegistus, 
"the greatest of all earthly beings", whether considered as 
king, lawyer, philosopher, or priest, for he was all of them 
and more too. 

But wisest fate said no. In the depth of night, while 
Mr. Shandy lay quietly sleeping, he was awakened by 
Susannah, who had come to tell him that his son was in con- 
vulsions near to the point of death, that Parson Yorick could 
nowhere be found to baptise him, but that his curate was 
already in the dressing-room, holding the child upon his 
arm, black as the ace of spades, and waiting for the name.- 

"Trismegistus", said Mr. Shandy, and Susannah ran 
along the gallery with the name to her mistress's room. 

c t >rp - s prig something, cried Susannah There is 

no christian-name in the world, said the curate, beginning 

with Tris but Tristram. Then 'tis Tristram-gistus, 

quoth Susannah. 

" There is no gistus to it noodle! 'tis my own 

name, replied the curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into 

the bason Tristram! said he, &c. &c. &c. &c, so Tristram 

was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my 
death." 

"Of all names in the universe", Mr. Shandy "had the 
most unconquerable aversion for Tristram.^ It is a name, 
he would say, so low and contemptible that it ' ' could possibly 
produce nothing in rerum natura but what was extremely 
mean and pitiful". Who, he used to ask (ignorant of the 
Tristram of romance), ever read or heard tell of "a man 



SHANDY HALL 243 

called Tristram, performing anything great or worth record- 
ing? No. * * * The thing is impossible". The next morning 
Mr. Shandy, as he was making tea with my uncle Toby, 
heard how Susannah and the curate lost Trismegistus between 
them; took down his hat from the peg, and walked away to 
meditate alone upon the final stroke of fortune. 

There was, however, still one ray of hope, which Yorick, 
who was summoned for his advice, pointed out to the dis- 
consolate father. Perhaps Tristram's name might be 
changed. At any rate they would all — Mr. Yorick and the 
two Shandys — attend the next Visitation Dinner at York 
and lay the matter before the eminent advocates and divines 
learned in ecclesiastical law. The dinner threatened to 
break up in hubbub before coming to the question at all; 
for by some accident a hot chestnut was dropped or poked 
into the breeches of Phutatorius, who accused Yorick of 
maliciously placing it there. The riot over the chestnut, 
however, soon subsided; and Didius, the great church-lawyer, 
brought forward Tristram's baptism for discussion. Mr. 
Shandy sat and listened to various amusing baptismal stories, 
learning, in the course of the evening, what made a baptism 
null and what made it valid in the period before the Reforma- 
tion, and that in special cases, like the Duchess of Suffolk 's, 
it had been adjudged by the highest courts that the mother 
may not be of kin to her child. The company at length 
broke up without determining the cause presented to them. 
Still, Mr. Shandy felt paid for his visit to the dinner, for 
never before had his brain been so tickled by the subtleties 
of dialectic wit. 

After the York dinner, the narrative quickly terminated 
with an account of the squire's project for enclosing the 
great Ox-moor, followed by the timely death of his eldest son 
Bobby, making Tristram thereby heir-apparent to the Shandy 
family. The new instalment of Tristram Shandy had many 
correspondences with the performance of the previous year. 
In both were the same or similar freaks of structure and 
style. As before, real and fictitious documents were intro- 
duced so cleverly that it was hard for the reader to determine 
the character of the one or the other. Latin and English 



244 LAUEENCE STERNE 

stared at each other on opposite pages, as in Pope's Imita- 
tions of Horace. In the fourth volume a chapter was dropped 
out and the pagination tampered with. The preface was 
again thrust in as an intermediate chapter ; and a marbled 
page, which should have been the ornamental lining to a 
cover, was transferred to the body of the book, as an emblem 
of its motley character. Local satire and allusion still 
abounded, though it has now become extremely difficult to 
uncover most of it, Philip liar land's experiments in farm- 
ing were gently ridiculed in Mr. Shandy's trouble with the 
Ox-moor; and from first to last Dr. Burton was crucified to 
the delight of his enemies. The Visitation Dinner was clearly 
a reminiscence of that turbulent dinner of the York chapter 
back in 1751 at George Woodhouse's, when Sterne and the 
Dean of York confronted Dr. Topham of the prerogative 
court and silenced him. Doubtless the portraits of several 
officials and clergymen present on that occasion were once 
recognisable under the Rabelaisian names that Sterne gave 
them, like Agelastes, who never laughed at a joke, and 
Somnolentus, who always slept through one. Dr. Topham 
surely appeared as Didius and shifted into Phutatorius 
before the dinner was over; and the hot chestnut which 
Yorick picked up from the floor after it had traversed the 
breeches of Phutatorius, not as an insult, but because he 
thought "a good chestnut worth stooping for", was a ludi- 
crous version of the old controversy over the commissaryship 
which Dr. Topham first resigned all right to, and afterwards 
claimed as his own when Sterne was willing to take it. And 
finally, the story of Tristram's christening may well have 
been a rendering of a local anecdote over the blunders of 
curates and sponsors at baptisms, with which the armory 
of clerical jest had long been filled. Perhaps something like 

it had occurred in one of Sterne's own parishes. "Name 

this child", once said a clergyman at the critical point in a 
baptism. "Zulphur", responded the godfather. "That", 
said the clergyman, "is not a name." "Sulphur Sul- 
phur" was the only result of another trial to get at the 

name, and the priest smiled. "He means Zilpah, Leah's 



SHANDY HALL 245 

handmaid/' suggested the clerk, and the child escaped a 
worse fate than Tristram's.* 

It was Sterne's own opinion that the new volumes sur- 
passed the old "in laughable humour", while they contained 
"an equal degree of Cervantic satire". And he was right, 
except that his inspiration was not Cervantes so much as 
Rabelais. His genius was yet to develop in other ways, but 
in satire he had now reached high water. Never since 
Eabelais had "the lumber rooms of learning" been so 
thoroughly overhauled and the learned blockheads dragged 
out and subjected to so keen a ridicule as in the wordy con- 
troversies over the stranger's nose and the points that nullify 
or make valid a baptism. It may be that some of the satire 
was misplaced and out of date; but, speaking generally, the 
old scholastic method of warfare still survived in philosophy 
and religion. Mr. Shandy was certainly not the last logician 
to employ the hypothesis as if it carried with it a sort of 
magic potency. Nor were the Shandy brothers the last men 
who, while invariably associating different ideas with the 
same words, have attempted to converse and reason together. 

Coming nearer home, Sterne waylaid and pommelled deli- 
ciously the connoisseurs in art and criticism; one of whom 
measured the angles of Tristram, Shandy with rule and com- 
pass, and pronounced it out of all plumb ; and another timed 
Garrick's pauses in Hamlet's soliloquy, without observing the 
actor's wonderful manner of bridging chasms with eye, atti- 
tude, and gesture, for he could not look away from the stop- 
watch in his hand, he said, if he was to count seconds and 
their fractions. The gentlemen on the Monthly Review and 
other magazines who had belaboured Sterne for publishing 
sermons under the name of Mr. Yorick, were singled out for 
good-natured ridicule. They rumpled, cut, and slashed at 
Yorick 's jerkin unmercifully, he told them; but they did not 
reach the sarcenet lining, and he still remained unharmed. 
And as he laid aside his pen, he drank a health to the big- 
wigs and long-beards who had admitted Yorick 's wit but 
lamented his lack of discretion, asking them to relax a little 
from their gravity and try him once more. "True Shan- 

*P. H. Ditchfield, The Parish Cleric, 268 (London, 1907). 



246 LAURENCE STERNE 

deism 1 '', he assured them, "think what you will against it, 
opens the heart and lungs, and like all those affections which 
partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital 
fluids of the body to run freely through its channels, makes 
the wheel of life run long and chearfully round." 

The third volume of Tristram Shandy was completed on 
the third day of August, and the fourth in November, after 
George the Third had begun his "propitious reign". Leav- 
ing his parish in charge of an assistant curate, Sterne went 
up to London alone the week before Christmas to watch his 
book through the press, which in advance of his coming had 
been advertised by Dodsley through the autumn in order to 
hedge off the spurious Shandy s which were threatening the 
market. For following Sterne this winter, we have hardly 
more than four letters to Stephen Croft relative to business 
with which the squire from time to time entrusted him. 
Sterne had several pictures copied for his friend, and pur- 
chased two prints for him, which, after being lent to Miss 
Gilbert, daughter of the Archbishop of York, who was south 
with her father, were duly posted to Stillington Hall. He 
also sounded the war-office several times on the chance of 
promotion for Mr. Croft's son Stephen, who held a commis- 
sion in the army. Fortunately, Sterne could not write on 
business without writing about himself and his book; so that 
much may be read in and out of these letters, if we can 
interpret the allusions and will heed the silences. 

On reaching London, Sterne was in high spirits and at 
once plunged into society with the old zest. Much as last 
year, he could write after a month of it: "I never dined at 

home once since I arrived am fourteen dinners deep 

engaged just now, and fear matters will be worse with me in 
that point than better." But beyond the dinners, no two 
London seasons were ever alike for Sterne. Old friends and 
old enemies were absent from town or they no longer regarded 
him, and new ones appeared to applaud or to abuse him. 
This year he was struck by the great changes that had taken 
place in "the looks and political reasoning" of the coffee- 
houses and all the companies he attended. The nation, he 
found to his surprise, was divided over the German war (as 



SHANDY HALL 247 

it was called) into two hostile camps, which he humorously 
called "Prussians and Anti-Prussians, Butes and Anti- 
Butes", breaking up the old distinction between Whig and 
Tory. The winter before it was nothing but Pitt, and none 
dared question the conduct of the great war-minister. In 
the meantime the war in Germany had gone disastrously; 
the loss of life in the field had been terrible; Prince Ferdi- 
nand, the hero of a year ago, was calling for forty thousand 
more men, and for provisions, else his army would starve in 
a fortnight; officers who should have been with their regi- 
ments were loitering about St. James's Coffee-House and 
Hyde Park; corruption was rampant, and loud complaints 
were heard of Pitt's "making a trade of the Avar". George 
the Second had died in October, and everybody was talking 
about the boy who had succeeded him. Sterne, like all the 
rest, closely watched the youth's habits and his policy of 
peace as it unfolded during the winter. It was a novel sight 
for him to see on the throne a young man of energy, deter- 
mined to be a king after the type set forth by Lord Boling- 
broke in his Patriot King. "The King seems resolved", 
Sterne wrote to his friends at Stillington, ' ' to bring all things 
back to their original principles, and to stop the torrent of 
corruption and laziness. * * * The present system being to 
remove that phalanx of great people, which stood betwixt 
the throne and the subjects, and suffer them to have im- 
mediate access without the intervention of a cabal (this 

is the language of others) : however, the King gives every- 
thing himself, knows everything, and weighs everything 

maturely, and then is inflexible this puts old stagers off 

their game how it will end we are all in the dark." 

An admirer of Pitt, Sterne had come to London as a 
Prussian, but he could not hold out against the strong senti- 
ment towards peace and a king who was fast winning the 
hearts of his people by granting them free access to the 
palace, and by appearing among them at the theatre and 
elsewhere. Sterne on one occasion sat in the gallery of the 
House of Commons through an entire day, waiting for the 
appearance of Pitt to throw down the gauntlet in defence of 
the German war; but "a political fit of the gout seized the 



248 LAURENCE STERNE 

great combatant and he entered not the lists". Instead of 
the expected speech, Sterne listened to a long and passionate 
debate, which began and ended with incoherent abnse of all 
who were crying for peace. A month later, he recorded the 
break-up of the ministry and the humiliation of Pitt, though 
his fall was not yet. "The court is turning topsy-turvy", 

he wrote to Croft, "Lord Bute, le premier Lord Talbot, 

to be groom of the chambers in room of the Duke of Rutland 

Lord Halifax to Ireland Sir Francis Dashwood in 

Talbot's place Pitt seems unmoved a peace inevitable 

Stocks rise the peers this moment kissing hands, &c. 

&c. (this week may be christened the kiss-hands week) for 
a hundred changes will happen in consequence of these. 
* # * p raVj when you have read this, send the news to 
Mrs. Sterne." 

Just as the peers were kissing hands, an odd rumour was 
set going by Sterne's enemies at York that George the Third 
had forbidden him the Court. He wrote back that Charles 
Townshend and other friends were very merry over the report, 
and assured him that he need fear "no accident of that 
kind". He continued to attend, we may be sure, the king's 
levees, and in February he was invited to the "grand assem- 
bly" of Lady Northumberland, soon to be appointed to her 
Majesty's bedchamber. The only place where Sterne was not 
a welcome guest seems to have been the house of Warburton 
in Grosvenor Square. The bishop professed to have heard 
from Garrick and Berenger certain stories about "our 
heteroclite parson" that disabled him from appearing 
longer "as his friend and well-wisher".* With many of 
the king's favourites who entered the new ministry or were 
seen most about the Court, Sterne claimed acquaintance, and 
with some of them he was in easy social relations. Charles 
Townshend 's appointment as Secretary of War he announced 
to Stephen Croft a month in advance. If he lost War- 
burton, he gained in his place John, Viscount Spencer, one of 
the new peers. This most agreeable nobleman sent him a sil- 

* See Warburton 's letters to Garrick dated June 16 and June 26, 
1760, in Private Correspondence of David Garriclc, 117-18 (London, 
1831). 



SHANDY HALL 249 

ver standish, invited him to Wimbleton, and in all ways 
befriended him as a patron should. It was a close friend- 
ship that continued to the end. Lord Spencer, however, was 
not a man to exert any restraint upon Sterne's conduct; 
while Warburton, humbug as he was, did care for the con- 
ventions of the cloth and tried to keep Sterne within their 
bounds. 

Warburton 's influence gone, Sterne soon drifted with 
the tide of fashion and social dissipation. In running through 
the list of the king's friends, one is amazed to find there, 
John Wilkes excepted, the leading Monks of the disbanded 
Medmenham Abbey and other men whose lives were equally 
notorious. Sir Francis Dashwood, treasurer of the Cham- 
bers, and subsequently Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the 
founder of the profligate order; and a former member, 
George Bubb Dodington, who still kept up a semblance of 
the brotherhood at his Hammersmith villa, was created Baron 
Melcombe of Melcombe Kegis. Sterne made the acquaint- 
ance of Wilkes the year before, and now fell in with his 
compeers. One morning he breakfasted with Eobert Van- 
sittart, recorder of Monmouth, — the Monk who brought to 
the abbey the baboon to which Sir Francis was wont to 
administer the eucharist. Sterne's name was also associated 
by John Croft with a pair of wits of the same general 
stamp — Samuel Foote, the clever actor and playright, and 
Francis Drake Delaval, an amateur actor, then a member of 
Parliament for Andover. Foote, who had just produced the 
Minor at the Haymarket, was at the height of his popularity, 
and Delaval was soon to be created a Knight of the Bath. 
About the two men, who were inseparable, many scandalous 
stories were in circulation. With no danger of break in 
their friendship, Delaval married Foote 's mistress. Ten 
years after Sterne first knew them, Delaval was found one 
morning dead on the floor of his room, with an empty bottle 
of usquebaugh lying by his side. "It is therefore supposed'*, 
said the newspapers naively in recording the sudden death, 
"that he had got up in the night to get something to drink". 
His body being opened by the physicians, "his stomach 
appeared in a very inflamed state ' '. No doubt it would have 



250 LAUEENCE STERNE 

been better for Sterne and some aspects of his art, had he 
never known and associated with these men or their like; 
but it is just, as well as charitable, to suppose that he was 
drawn to them, not by their immorality, in which there is 
no evidence of his sharing, but by their extraordinary wit 
and good fellowship — qualities which attracted even Dr. 
Johnson to Vansittart. They were the fine gentlemen of the 
period. 

Amid the earlier engagements of the season, Sterne had 
the proofs of his book to revise in the morning. It was his 
custom to make minor changes at the last moment, "prick- 
ing in the lights", so to speak, in modern phrase. This year 
there was some question about Slawkenbergius on noses, 
which, a reader will observe, is so placed that it could be cut 
out with a little readjustment of the text before or after the 
tale. Stephen Croft, who had acted as Sterne's adviser 
during the period of composition, objected to Slawken- 
bergius, probably on the ground that as a story it ran upon 
an equivocation too long drawn out to pass muster. Twice 
he remonstrated with Sterne by letter after the author had 
reached London. From Sterne's first reply, it seems quite 
likely that he met his friend's objection by shifting the 
emphasis of the episode from equivocation to a satire on 
misplaced and futile learning. Be this as it may, Sterne 
had decided to let Slawkenbergius stand, for his friends in 
London had read the manuscript and approved. In high 
spirits he then wrote to Stephen Croft : "As to the main 

points in view, at which you hint all I can say is, that 

I see my way, and unless Old Nick throws the dice shall, 

in due time, come off the winner, Tristram will be out 

the twentieth there is a great rout made about him before 

he enters the stage whether this will be of use or no, I 

can't say some wits of the first magnitude here, both as 

to wit and station, engage me success time will shew." 

Heralded by wits and coffee-houses, the second instalment 
of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 
comprising the third and fourth volumes of the work, issued 
from Dodsley's press — a week later than the author had 
expected — on Wednesday the twenty-eighth of January, 



SHANDY HALL 251 

1761, in company with a new edition of the first two volumes. 
It contained, as if to frighten away over-violent criticism, 
compliments to Reynolds as an easy and graceful painter, 
and to "my dear friend Garrick, whom I have so much cause 
to esteem and honour". Pitt was alluded to in the "states- 
man turning the political wheel * * * against the stream 
of corruption"; and Mr. Shandy spoke of the glory and 
honour surrounding the names of the young king and the 
Duke of York, of whom the latter had noticed Sterne the 
preceding May. On the other hand, Warburton was dealt 
a covert thrust in the reference to a bishop who complained 
of being splashed by Yorick's horse. Hogarth and Ravenet 
his engraver were again called in for a frontispiece, repre- 
senting the scene in Mrs. Shandy's dressing-room the moment 
after Yorick's curate had christened Tristram by the wrong 
name. The London Magazine, then the semi-official organ 
of the ministry, very properly inserted a congratulatory note 
in its January issue, saying: "At length the real, the in- 
imitable Shandy, again makes his appearance, and all the 
host of impotent criticks and imitators look agast, at his 
superior genius. Whoever of our readers have, with true 
relish read his former volumes, may be assured that their 
perusal of the third and fourth will not be attended with 
less delight." 

But Sterne's friends among the great availed not with 
the professional critics, or with a large section of the public. 
Horace Walpole, writing to a Yorkshire parson early in 
March, observed by the way: "The second and third vol- 
umes of Tristram Shandy, the dregs of nonsense, have uni- 
versally met the contempt they deserve: genius may be 

exhausted; 1 see that folly's invention may be so too."* 

Outside the London Magazine, the author and his book were 
everywhere denounced in print. The Monthly Review, for 
example, in its March number, apologised for all that it had 
ever said in favour of the first volumes, and then proceeded 
to read Sterne a lecture on the proprieties and the art of 
writing one's self out. The publication of a book like Tris- 
tram Shandy, Sterne was told, might be only venial in & 

* Letters, edited by Toynbee, V, 32. 



252 LAUBENCE STEKNE 

Foote, who professed to write nothing but farces, but no act 
could be more reprehensible in a dignitary of the Church. 
"Do for shame, Mr. Shandy, hide your jerkin, or, at least, 
send the lining to the scowerer's." "But your Indiscretion, 
good Mr. Tristram", to go on with the address to Sterne, 
"is not all we complain of in the volumes now before us. 
We must tax you with what you will dread above the most 
terrible of all imputations — nothing less than Dullness. 
Yes, indeed, Mr. Tristram, you are dull, very dull. Your 
jaded Fancy seems to have been exhausted by two pigmy 
octavos, which scarce contained the substance of a twelve- 
penny pamphlet. * * * Your characters are no longer strik- 
ing and singular. We are sick of your uncle Toby's wound 
in his groin ; we have had enough of his ravelines and breast- 
works: in short, we are quite tired with his hobby horses; 
and we can no longer bear with Corporal Trim's insipidity." 
Nothing in the book entertained the reviewer, except Ernulf 's 
"extraordinary anathema", which Sterne had probably 
purloined, it was charged, from some old newspaper or 
magazine. 

The Critical Review for April, though in the main milder 
in tone and appreciative here and there, likewise read Sterne 
a philosophical essay on the different kinds of humour, down 
to the bastard forms he was practising in imitation of 
Kabelais. Like his brother on the Monthly Review, this 
critic claimed that Sterne had lost his audience, but he 
explained it differently. There was really, in his view, no 
marked difference between Sterne's two performances. "One 
had merit", he said, "but was extolled above its value; the 
other has defects, but is too severely decried." Slawken- 
bergius's Tale, for instance, shows that Mr. Sterne can write 
Latin "with elegance and propriety", and in other places he 
displays "taste and erudition". The trouble has really 
been with the public, it was the reviewer's opinion, who, 
having once gorged itself with Tristram Shandy, could stand 
no more without "nausea and indigestion". "All novel 
readers", to quote him exactly, "from the stale maiden of 
quality to the snuff-taking chambermaid, devoured the first 
part with a most voracious swallow, and rejected the last 



SHANDY HALL 253 

with marks of loathing and aversion. We must not look 
for the reason of this difference in the medicine, but in the 
patient to which it was administered." 

These outrageous attacks no one will take over-seriously, 
for their animus is too apparent for that. The offence that 
the reviewers took at the immoralities of Tristram Shandy 
was mere humbug, for their own magazines and newspapers 
spoke at times a more vulgar language than Sterne's at its 
worst. Sterne had chastised the reviewers because they cen- 
sured him for publishing sermons under the name of Yorick, 
the king's jester; and they were but repaying him in the 
same kind. There was not much more in it than this. If 
they had hitherto only rumpled his jerkin, they would show 
him that they could, when they wished, slash the lining. 
Sterne, as usual, professed indifference to them at first. Just 
as the storm was breaking over his head, he wrote to Stephen 
Croft: "One half of the town abuse my book as bitterly, as 

the other half cry it up to the skies the best is, they 

abuse and buy it, and at such a rate, that we are going on 
with a second edition, as fast as possible." But when the 
storm rose to its fury, Sterne became excited also. "If my 
enemies knew", he then wrote again to Croft, "that by this 
rage of abuse and ill-will, they were effectually serving the 
interests both of myself, and works, they would be more 

quiet but it has been the fate of my betters, who have 

found, that the way to fame, is like the way to heaven 

through much tribulation and till I shall have the honour 

to be as much maltreated as Rabelais and Swift were, I must 
continue humble ; for I have not filled up the measure of half 
their persecutions." 

For many readers Sterne's wit had no doubt lost its 
freshness, but so far as one can see, there was no immediate 
decline, as his enemies would have it, in the sale of Shandy, 
of which the second edition appeared on the twenty-first of 
May. Sterne was still the vogue as much as ever, only in a 
different set. "Where I had one friend", he said, "last 
year to do me honour, I have three now." And every new 
friend, it is implied, meant a new reader. In March his 
fine portrait by Reynolds was placed on public exhibition by 



254 LAURENCE STERNE 

the Society of Artists. As last year, the garreteers accom- 
panied his progress with books and pamphlets, of which the 
most pretentious was The Life and Opinions of Bertram 
Montfichet, a faithful and humble copy of Sterne's first 
instalment down to the Greek motto, paper, print, size and 
number of volumes, with an uncle Dick for my uncle Toby. 
The author of Explanatory Remarks upon Tristram Shandy 
found an audience for a second part in continuation; and 
another wit outdid Sterne's oddities by publishing A Book 
without a Title-page. Tristram Shandy also gave his name 
to a new country-dance, to a soup and a salad which could 
be had at the coffee-houses, and to a game of cards "in which 
the knave of hearts, if hearts are trumps, is supreme, and 
nothing can resist his power". 

From the jests of scribblers, the transition is most abrupt 
to the last sight we get of Sterne in London for this year. 
Lloyd's Evening Post for Monday the fourth of May con- 
tained the following news-item : 

' ' Yesterday morning a charity sermon was preached at 
the Chapel, belonging to the Foundling Hospital for the 
support of the children maintained and educated in the said 
hospital, by the Rev. Mr. Sterne, to a numerous audience, 
several of whom were persons of distinction, and a handsome 
collection was made for the further support of that charity. ' ' 

This was Sterne's first and only appearance in a London 
pulpit. The Foundling Hospital, situated in Guilford street, 
was then a fashionable charity numbering among its numer- 
ous patrons many of the nobility. Peers, it is said, had stood 
as godfathers to deserted children in the Chapel of St. 
Andrew's where Sterne officiated; Handel had frequently 
performed there, and on the walls hung portraits and other 
paintings by Hogarth, Reynolds, and their contemporaries, 
as gifts to the foundation. For several years the hospital 
had been scandalously mismanaged, and the last Parliament 
had revised its charter. It was a tribute to Sterne's popu- 
larity, if nothing more, for the new board of governors to 
turn to him as a preacher who would attract a large and 
generous congregation. It so happened that the new treas- 
urer, George Whatley— known in America for his association 



SHANDY HALL 255 

and correspondence with Franklin — was acquainted with 
Yorick; and to him accordingly fell the duty of inviting 
"Dr. Sterne", as he was sometimes called, to take the annual 
charity sermon. After repeated promises, Sterne fixed the 
Sunday in a characteristic note, dated March 25, 1761, which 
he sent over to Whatley's lodgings in Lothbury: 

"On April the fifth, 1751, and sure as the day comes, 

and as sure as the Foundling Hospital stands, will I 

(that is, in case I stand myself) discharge my conscience of 
my promise in giving you, not a half hour (not a poor half 
hour), for I never could preach so long without fatiguing 

both myself and my flock to death but I will give you a 

short sermon, and flap you in my turn : — preaching (you 
must know) is a theologic flap upon the heart, as the dunning 

for a promise is a political flap upon the memory: both 

the one and the other is useless where men have wit enough 
to be honest. This makes for my hypothesis of wit and 
judgment. I believe you to have both in a great degree, 
and therefore I am, with great esteem and truth, your's, 

"Laurence Sterne. 

"P.S. I will take care to be walking under some colon- 
nade, in or about the Hospital, about a quarter before 
eleven. ' '* 

But Sterne did not tread the round of the hospital 
colonnades on that Sunday morning in April, owing either 
to ill health or to social engagements. It took still another 
month to bring him up to the sticking-point ; and then he 
appeared on the first Sunday of May, his coming announced 
by the newspapers. The politicians, wits, and men of fashion 
with whom Sterne had intimately associated for four months, 
one may be certain, came to see how the author of Tristram 
Shandy would conduct himself in his clerical gown. Yorick 
took for his theme the parable of the Eich Man and Lazarus, 
on the text ' ' If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither 
will they be persuaded, though one should rise from the 
dead". It was a sermon of attitudes, pauses, and para- 

* This letter, from the original in possession of J. T. Kudd, was 
published in the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature 
for August, 1806. In the issue for the preceding March, Kudd gave an 
account of George Whatley. 



256 LAURENCE STERNE 

doxes, which must have amused here and there his friends 
looking for Shandean eccentricity. The preacher put an 
imaginary speech into the mouth of a messenger from heaven 
calling upon his hearers to part with the vices that bring 
only death and misery to their doors, and addressed the 
Almighty directly on the distinctions between the rich and 
the poor, asking Him what they all meant, and then answer- 
ing the question himself in the assurance that each man's 
case shall sometime be reconsidered by a just God, as the Rich 
Man of the parable found out to his pain. By the way 
Sterne admonished his "dear auditers" against "the treach- 
ery of the senses", and exhorted them "to be temperate and 
chaste, and just and peaceable, and charitable and kind 
to one another". At times the orator rose to a degree of 
pathetic eloquence, as in his appeal for alms "in behalf of 
those who know not how to ask it for themselves". In 
closing, his voice became husky; and his audience should 
have wept in response to his final invitation for tears. 

It was not a great sermon; indeed it hardly equalled the 
one Sterne preached before the charity schools of York in 
the days of his obscurity ; but it was in a measure successful. 
The treasurer of the hospital reported to the managers a 
contribution amounting to fifty-five pounds, nine shillings, 
and two pence.* 

* The minutes of the Foundling Hospital contain two entries with 
reference to the sermon. On Wednesday, April 29, it was ordered: 

"That a paragraph be inserted in the Daily Papers that a Charity 
Sermon will be preached in the Chapel of this Hospital on Sunday 
next by the Revd. Mr. Sterne. " 

The paragraph appeared in the Public Advertiser of Saturday, May 2. 

On Wednesday, May 6, the entry reads: 

"The Treasurer reported that the Collection at the Anthem in the 
Chapel last Sunday, amounted to £55. 9. 2," 



CHAPTER XI 

SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 
TKISTRAM SHANDY: VOLUMES V AND VI 

JUNE 1761— JANUAEY 1762 

It was well on in June before Sterne took his seat in the 
coach for York. On the road between Stilton and Stamford, 
he got a fright, if we are to interpret Shandy literally, at the 
reckless driving of the postillion down a three-mile slope; 
and, thrusting his head out of the window, he vowed to "the 
great God of day" that he would lock up his study door the 
moment he reached home and throw the key into his draw- 
well at the back of Shandy Hall. Merely stopping at York, 
he hurried on to his family at Coxwold. During the first 
weeks after his arrival he was, in contrast with the summer 
before, ill at ease in his parish. "The transition from rapid 
motion to absolute rest", he complained in a letter to Hall- 
Stevenson, then in London, "was too violent. 1 should have 

walked about the streets of York ten days, as a proper medium 

to have passed through, before I entered upon my rest. 1 

staid but a moment, and I have been here but a few, to satisfy 
me I have not managed my miseries like a wise man." The 
weather, too, was "cold and churlish" on the moors, as if it 
were "bleak December". His wife, piqued perhaps, as she 
had right to be, at his long absence, received him coolly, 
declaring herself happier without him. ' ' Lord ! " he cried 
out half -seriously in his desolation, "0 Lord! now are you 
going to Ranelagh to-night, and I am sitting, sorrowful as 
the prophet was, when the voice cried out to him and said, 

'What dost thou here, Elijah?' 'Tis well the spirit does 

not make the same at Coxwould for unless for the few 

sheep left me to take care of, in this wilderness, I might as 
well, nay better, be at Mecca." 

The mood of discontent, not quite genuine, quickly passed. 

17 257 



258 LAUBENCE STEENE 

Husband and wife came to an understanding, and Sterne 
resumed his parish duties with unwonted zeal, preaching, I 
take it, regularly every Sunday. This year or the preceding, 
the parson received, it used to be said at Coxwold, a summons 
to the death-bed of a poor widow on the outskirts of his 
parish ; and after administering to her the last sacrament, he 
enquired what she intended to leave him in her will for his 
trouble. "Alas! Sir", answered the distressed woman, "I 
am too wretched to give a legacy even to my own relations." 
"That excuse", replied Yorick, "shall not serve me. I insist 
upon inheriting your two children, and, in grateful return 
for the bequest, I will take such care of them that they shall 
feel as little as possible the loss of an affectionate and worthy 
mother." "The expiring parent", concludes the anecdote, 
"at once comforted and surprised, assented; and Sterne 
religiously kept his promise." Whether the incident be true 
or not, it is interesting to get this traditional view of Sterne 's 
kindness to his parishioners.* Sometime during the sum- 
mer, he drew up a plan for re-seating his church, in the man- 
ner of a cathedral, that there might be "better sound" and 
"better light". The plan was submitted to Richard Chapman, 
the steward of Newburgh Priory, who sent it, with detailed 
comments, to Lord Fauconberg, then in London, for approval 
or disapproval. On the day of the king's coronation, the 
twenty-second of September, Sterne entertained his entire 
parish and all the country-side. The story of it was told by 
Mr. Chapman in his letter to the Earl of Fauconberg under 
date of September the twenty-fifth: 

"I am extremely obliged to your lordship for the corona- 
tion .news, and am glad your lordship got excused from 
attending, which might have been of bad consequence. Here 
a fine ox with his horns gilt was roasted whole in the middle 
of the town, after which the bells put in for church, where an 
excellent sermon was delivered extempory on the occasion by 
Mr. Sterne, and gave great content to every hearer. The 
church was quite full, both quire and aisle, to the very door. 
The text, &c, you will see both in the London and York 
papers. About three o'clock the ox was cut up and dis- 

* Yorkshire Notes and Queries, June, 1904. 



SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 259 

tributed amongst at least three thousand people, after which 
two barrels of ale was distributed amongst those that could 
get nearest to 'em. Ringing of bells, squibs and crackers, 
tar-barrels and bonfires, &c, and a ball in the evening, con- 
cluded the joyful day."* 

Sterne paid for the ox and perhaps for the ale out of his 
own pocket. His extemporary sermon, which had been care- 
fully written out, dealt historically with the Church in Eng- 
land under Divine Providence, from the time God sent the 
Romans into Britain to open a pathway for the Gospel, and 
''then put his hook into their nostrils and led these wild 
beasts of prey back again into their own land ' ', down through 
the dark days of Popery to the Reformation, and on to the 
final deliverance of the kingdom from "the arts of Jesuitry" 
in the reign just ended. In conclusion the preacher exhorted 
his hearers to be loyal to King George the Third, and to live 
pure and sinless lives, that "the great and mighty God" 
might never have reason for withdrawing his mercies from 
the chosen people. 

Earlier in the summer there had been some delay in 
beginning Shandy again. In July Sterne bought "seven 
hundred books at a purchase dog cheap", in consequence of 
which his study was topsy-turvy for a week before he could 
get them set up. He seems to have been thinking, too, of 
further preferment in the Church, for he wrote a clerum, 
or the Latin sermon preliminary to the degree of Doctor of 
Divinity ; but he went no further, owing, it may be surmised, 
to the death in August of the Archbishop of York. Dr. Gil- 
bert, and his daughter, who, it is said, really ruled the diocese, 
were both most friendly to Sterne. The new archbishop, 
Robert Hays Drummond, who was translated from Salisbury, 
also proved to be well disposed to him, but the election was 
not yet, and the favour of the new archbishop could not yet 
be counted on. Once started, Sterne went on with Shandy 
with more than his usual pace. On the tenth of August he 
arrived at the story of Tristram's accident; by the first of 
September he was already in the fifth book ; and by the close 

* Beport on Manuscripts in Various Collections * * * presented to 
Parliament by Command of Ms Majesty, II, 188-89 (London, 1903). 



260 LAUEENCE STEENE 

of October he may have been at the end. For nearly three 
months he worked steadily, amid the quiet of domestic scenes 
such as were never to return to him at Shandy Hall. Just 
as the conclusion was in sight, he wrote to a friend who had 
sent him belated congratulations on his appointment to Cox- 
wold by the Earl of Fauconberg: "My new habitation * * * 
is within a mile of his Lordship 's seat and park. 'Tis a very 

agreeable ride out in the chaise I purchased for my wife. 

Lyd has a pony which she delights in. Whilst they take 

these diversions, I am scribbling away at my Tristram. 

These two volumes are, I think, the best. 1 shall write as 

long as I live, 'tis, in fact, my hobby-horse ; and so much am 
I delighted with my uncle Toby's imaginary character, that 

I am become an enthusiast. My Lydia helps to copy for 

me and my wife knits, and listens as I read her chapters. ' ' 

At the outset of his work, Sterne was uncertain, any 
reader may see, as to the course his story was to run. 
Kabelais still rested at his elbow for hints, and Burton's 
Anatomy, I fear, lay wide open in front of him. Belying 
too much upon them and other books to awaken his fancy, 
he did not start out well in his first chapter, which opened 
with a riddle and closed with direct appropriations from 
Burton on "the relicks of learning" and on man as "the 
miracle of nature". The fragment on whiskers, which fol- 
lowed, was an elaborate double entendre, likewise pieced out 
of Burton, with the aid of the article on Margaret of Valois 
in Bayle's Dictionary, perhaps one of his seven hundred new 
books from London. The episode was skilfully stitched 
together, to be sure; but it was after all only a double 
entendre, without the brilliant satirical colouring of the 
chapter on noses, which it was intended to duplicate. From 
the old conversations in the parlour of Shandy Hall, Dr. 
Slop dropped out, except as he waddled through on his way 
to bind up Tristram's wound and to quarrel with Susannah. 
With Dr. Slop gone and Yorick put into his place, the butt 
of Sterne's satire went also. In consequence of this, the 
narrative moved on heavily for some pages through Mr. 
Shandy's philosophical lament over the death of Bobby, 
which came straight out of Burton. Matters began to mend, 



SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 261 

however, when Sterne reached the story of Tristram's acci- 
dent in the sashed window, which is one of Sterne's best 
anecdotes of that kind. All of Mr. Shandy's carefully laid 
plans for his son's physical welfare having now miscarried, 
through successive blunders of physician, curate, and house- 
maid, nothing remained for him but to try a new system of 
education upon Tristram, in the hope of making a prodigy 
of him. To this end he wrote a Tristra-paedia in rivalry 
with Xenophon's Cyropaedia, descriptive of the training which 
Gyrus the Great was supposed to pass through to the rule of 
the East. Forgetting his books at this point, Sterne passed 
in review, with excellent ridicule, a young man's career at 
school and university, as exemplified in his own experience, 
out to the theory that a short cut to knowledge — a Northwest 
Passage, so to speak, — might be opened through skilful prac- 
tice in manipulating the auxiliary verbs. That scheme for 
the quick multiplication of ideas pleased Corporal Trim and 
my uncle Toby also, for some of the bravest men, they said, 
that they had ever fought by the side of in the Low Coun- 
tries, were auxiliaries. 

Still, in spite of many good things, Sterne knew instinc- 
tively that he could not continue longer on the oddities of 
Mr. Shandy, and escape the danger of writing himself out, as 
his critics intimated that he had done already. He therefore 
passed to the kitchen of Shandy Hall and over to my uncle 
Toby's bowling green for a set of characters not yet so far 
exhausted. Sterne's wit was always whimsical, but he never 
rendered the supreme charm and delicacy possible to the 
whim until he placed my uncle Toby before his toy fortifica- 
tions on the bowling green, gazette in hand, giving Corporal 
Trim directions for attacking and winning the last town that 
Marlborough had entered in triumph. "When the chamade 
was beat, and the corporal helped my uncle up it, and fol- 
lowed with the colours in his hand, to fix them upon the 

ramparts Heaven! Earth! Sea! but what avails 

apostrophes ? with all your elements, wet or dry, ye never 

compounded so intoxicating a draught." 

Sterne had employed gesture, too, in the delineation of 
character, beyond the skill of most humourists; but he never 



262 LAURENCE STERNE 

attained to the full scope and meaning of it until he let the 
corporal discourse on life and death, standing amid a motley 
group in the kitchen, who had just heard that Master Bobby 
would never return from his travels : 

" 'Are we not here now,' continued the corporal, (striking 
the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to 

give an idea of health and stability) * * * * 'and are we 

not' (dropping his hat plumb upon the ground — and 

pausing, before he pronounced the word) 'gone! in a 

moment?' The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump 

of clay had been kneaded into the crown of it. Nothing 

could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it 

was the type and fore-runner, like it, his hand seemed to 

vanish from under it, it fell dead, the corporal's eye 

fixed upon it, as upon a corps, and Susannah burst into 

a flood of tears." 

Sterne was a sentimentalist, readers of this memoir need 
hardly be told, from the time he took hartshorn to bear up 
against the absence of Miss Lumley; but outside of some of 
his sermons, his pathos had been kept well in abeyance except 
for an occasional passage, like my uncle Toby's fly or the 
death of poor Yorick. He was now reworking the old vein 
and refining it to pure gold. No humour could be gentler 
and more winning than Trim's catechism, or my uncle Toby's 
lament over the Peace of Utrecht, or the story of Le Fever, a 
poor lieutenant, like Sterne's own father, who fell ill on the 
route to join his regiment in Flanders and lay near death at 
the village inn. My uncle Toby, though Le Fever was a 
stranger to him, felt so keenly for the distress of a brother 
officer that he could not sleep o 'nights or bear for a moment 
the thought of his dying. One evening, as Trim was putting 
his master to bed, he told him that it was all over with the 
poor soul, who would never march again, but must surely die. 
' ' He will march ; said my uncle Toby, rising up from the side 
of the bed, with one shoe off: * * * marching the foot which 

had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch, he shall 

march to his regiment. * * * He shall not die, by G , 

cried my uncle Toby." 

"The Accusing Spirit", Sterne commented famously, 



SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 263 

"which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush 'd 

as he gave it in; and the Recording Angel, as he wrote 

it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out 
for ever." 

The better part of these volumes was thus written under 
the clear and full inspiration of Sterne's genius. "Ask my 
pen", he says, why I write these details about Le Fever and 

my uncle Toby, "it governs me 1 govern not it". 

True, he has been accused of stealing my uncle Toby's oath, 
but I can not run down the theft, and think some mistake 
has been made about it. Certain parallels or analogies to it 
lie imbedded in the so-called exempla of mediaeval divines 
and moralists, but the search leads no further. Richard 
Rolle of Hampole, a hermit and author of the fourteenth 
century, for example, tells the story of a canon who was to 
be damned, it was supposed, because of imperfect repentance. 
A scholar wrote down his sins and gave the record of them 
to the abbot, who found them all blotted out, and the parch- 
ment as white and clean as if ink had never defiled it. 
Sterne's idea lay in this and other exempla, some of which 
he had met with in his reading; but the beauty, the charm, 
and the humour of it, he alone knew how to render grandly. 

In the quiet and chastened humour that ruled Sterne while 
sporting with pathos, his old enemies on the reviews es- 
caped the usual long tirades. They were nevertheless not 
quite forgotten here and there. Sterne likened them, in 
beginning his sixth book, to a line of uncurried and forlorn 
jackasses, who viewed and reviewed him as he was passing 
over the rivulet of a little valley; "and when we climbed 

over that hill, and were just getting out of sight good 

God ! what a braying did they all set up together !" For the 
benefit of those who complained that they could not follow 
him through his digressions, he plotted the curves of his 
narrative, writing his own name beneath as the engraver. 
And for the moralists who feared contamination, he printed 
rows of stars in place of suppressed passages, and left one 
entire page blank, on which they might write what they 
pleased, to the end that his book should have at least one page 
"which Malice will not blacken, and which Ignorance can- 



264 LAUEENCE STEENE 

not misrepresent '\ Expressive of his general aim and be- 
speaking the indulgence of his public, he placed at the head 
of each volume, beneath the usual title, two Latin quotations 
(afterward increased to three), one from Horace and one 
from Erasmus, taken not from the originals, but as he found 
them slightly changed in the Anatomy of Melancholy* 
Speaking with Erasmus through Burton, he asked that his 
readers distinguish between his character as clergyman and 
his role as jester. "If any one", to paraphrase the Latin, 
"objects that my book is too light and fantastic for a divine 
or too satirical for a Christian, let him remember that 'tis 
not I but Democritus who has spoken. ' ' While the book was 
in making, Sterne sent a draft of the story of Le Fever (as 
far as the second paragraph of the thirteenth chapter) to 
Lady Spencer, with comments thereon in his own hand, as a 
step towards inscribing that part of his work to her Lady- 
ship, and the two volumes as a whole to her husband, John, 
Lord Viscount Spencer. 

In anticipation of Sterne's coming to London to super- 
intend the publication of his book, the scribblers, expecting 
something of the old order, had been unusually busy. Not 
without wit — coarse, it is true — was a shilling pamphlet which 
appeared late in October under the title: A Funeral Dis- 
course occasioned by the much lamented Death of Mr. Yorick, 
Prebendary of Y * * Jc, * * * preached before a very mixed 
Society of Jemmies, Jessamies, Methodists and Christians, 
at a Nocturnal Meeting in Petticoat Lane, on a text to be 
found in "the first chapter of the Gospel of the Jemmies, 
otherwise called the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 
at the words: Alas Poor Yorick!" The preacher told his 
congregation that the report current that Mr. Sterne was 
now living and writing the fifth and sixth volumes of Shandy 
was false. It is barely possible, he added in explanation of 
his jest, that the animal Sterne may still be alive, but the 
spiritual Sterne, all his wit and fancy, died with Slawken- 
bergius's Tale and passed into oblivion. The pamphlet was 
dedicated to "the Right Honourable, the Lord F g and 

* Anatomy of Melancholy, edited by A. E. Shilleto, I, 138 (London, 
1903). 



SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 265 

the very facetious Mr. Fcote". In a footnote it was said 
with reference to Sterne's intimacy with Archbishop Gilbert, 
then dead a few months: "The late arch-bishop of York, 
Dr. Gr*****tof leaden memory, used to say, that he 
was so delighted with the Life and Opinions of Tristram 
Shandy that he read them once every six weeks." At the 
heels of Yorick's Funeral, came An Admonitory Letter ad- 
dressed to the Rev. Mr. S , * * * by a Layman, in wild 

censure of Mr. Sterne's literary morals; and The Life and 
Amours of Hafen Slawkenbergius, purporting to be the tale 
which Yorick had half promised in his fourth volume but 
had left untold. It was intimated, curiously enough, by the 
Critical Review, that Sterne bore a hand in some of these 
pamphlets, sending them forth, so to speak, as an advance 
guard to herald his approach. 

Unaware of what awaited him, Sterne must have come 
up to London towards the end of November, a month before 
his custom; for the third instalment of Tristram Shandy — 
the fifth and sixth volumes — was advertised for Monday, 
December 21, 1761, though it bore the date of the new year. 
In this interval, while the author was correcting printers' 
blunders and improving his style in general, occurred the 
only meeting that ever took place between Sterne and Dr. 
Johnson. "In a company where I lately was", the lexi- 
cographer is reported to have said to a group of friends, 
' l Tristram Shandy introduced himself ; and Tristram Shandy 
had scarcely sat down, when he informed us that he had been 
writing a Dedication to Lord Spencer; and sponte sua he 
pulled it out of his pocket; and sponte sua, for nobody 
desired him, he began to read it ; and before he had read half 
a dozen lines, sponte med, sir, I told him it was not English, 
sir."* The scene of the encounter seems to have been the 
Old Cheshire Cheese Tavern, where Dr. Johnson was sitting 
with Goldsmith or Boswell.f The lexicographer's criticism, 
it has been supposed, was heeded; and thus by the irony 
of fate Dr. Johnson became, if not an actual corrector, at 

* The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Begister, Dec, 1818 
(vol. X, p. 389). 

\Notes and Queries, tenth series, vol. V, 108. 



266 LAUEENCE STEENE 

least a contributor to the good English of a man whom he 
despised. But Sterne, I fancy, let the dedication stand as it 
had been written, loose and ungrammatical as it was in 
structure from the "Johnsonian point of view, and yet clear 
and beautiful to one who reads for the meaning and not to 
parse the sentences. 

Sterne's early arrival in London was made imperative by 
the loss of his publisher. During the summer some misun- 
derstanding had arisen between him and Dodsley, the cause 
of which one can only conjecture, as no scrap of their cor- 
respondence over it is known to be extant. The last instal- 
ment of Tristram Shandy, after its first great run was over, 
had not sold well, for there had been no edition since the 
one in May. Sterne, in his disappointment, laid the blame, 
I take it, upon Dodsley rather than upon the public. Be this 
as it may, author and publisher parted company in October, 
when Sterne took the unusual course of advertising his fifth 
and sixth volumes in the London newspapers without a pub- 
lisher's name. Not till well on in December did any of these 
announcements bear the name of "T. Becket and P. A. 
Dehondt", at the sign of Tully's Head in the Strand, 
to whom Sterne transferred his patronage and remained 
faithful to the last. The firm, however, did not imme- 
diately purchase the copyright. Four thousand sets were 
printed at Sterne's expense, and Becket was to sell them on 
commission. 

Under the new management, the price of the set was 
reduced from five to four shillings, and advance copies were 
widely distributed to the press without much direct adver- 
tising. No great difficulty could have been encountered in 
matching exactly Dodsley 's paper and type, so that the new 
volumes should present to the eye the same look as the old. 
But the change of publisher was attended with one incon- 
venience. Every season spurious works in danger of being 
thought Sterne's were placed on the market by unscrupulous 
booksellers. Last January it was The Life and Opinions of 
Bertram Montfichet. Now it was another Slawkenbergius, 
which was timed to appear on the same day with Tristram 
Shandy, as a sort of supplement to be bound with it. Equally 



SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 267 

impudent was The Life and Adventures of Christopher 
Wagstaff'e, Gentleman, — "a lively and facetious imitation 
of Mr. Sterne's famous performance", — the hero of which 
claimed to be, in allusion to Sterne's plagiarisms from John 
Dunton, a grandfather of Tristram Shandy. So long as 
Sterne's books carried the imprint of Dodsley, there was no 
good reason for anybody's being deceived by the imitators 
and forgers; but the case was quite different when Becket 
became his publisher. As a natural, though perhaps not 
quite necessary, precaution, Sterne went through the labour 
of inscribing his name in each set, usually near the top of 
the first page to the right, after the dedication to Lord 
Spencer. The signature caused here and there a smile or 
jest, for the last author to make use of this device, it 
so happened, was "the ingenious Mrs. Constantia Phillips" 
of scandalous memory. 

Critics and moralists who had been lying in wait to 
pounce upon Sterne once more, were taken aback when they 
saw him step forth in a new and unsuspected character. 
Some of them, to be sure, who did not read the volumes, fell 
into the old abusive tone. A week after their appearance, 
Warburton, for example, who could scarcely have seen them, 
fired his parting shot at Sterne in a letter from Prior- 
Park to his friend Richard Hurd, afterwards Bishop of 
Worcester : 

"Sterne has published his fifth and sixth Volumes of 
Tristram. They are wrote pretty much like the first and 
second ; but whether they will restore his reputation as a 

writer with the publick, is another question. The fellow 

himself is an irrecoverable scoundrel."* 

No one who' read agreed with Warburton. Garrick and 
other friends told Sterne that his "thought of the accusing 
spirit flying up to heaven's chancery with the oath" was 
sublime. The Admonitory Letter to which I have referred 
was declared by Sterne's old enemy on the Critical Review 
to be "founded on misapprehension". The critic was com- 
pelled, as a matter of business, to point out Mr. Sterne 's gross 

* Letters from a Late Eminent Prelate to one of his Friends, 335 
(London, 1809). 



268 LAURENCE STERNE 

faults and obligations to Rabelais; but my uncle Toby's oath, 
though a conceit, must be pronounced "a conceit of genius". 
Even the Monthly Review* so bitter last year and still bitter 
enough, found the new instalment superior to all the rest, 
and printed entire the death of Le Fever as showing wherein 
lay Mr. Sterne's great excellence. Indeed, the story of 
Le Fever, it has been said, was copied into all the magazines 
and newspapers of the kingdom. Though the statement is 
not quite true, it nevertheless circulated very widely in this 
way. The London Chronicle set the ball rolling in its issue 
of December 19-22, and subsequently gave the passage de- 
scribing "Corporal Trim's Manner of Saying his Catechism". 
St. James's Chronicle for December 22-24 included quota- 
tions from it in an appreciation covering nearly three col- 
umns. And so we might go on to the London Magazine and 
the Gentleman's Magazine for January, and to other periodi- 
cals of the winter which helped to spread Sterne's good fame 
farther than it had yet gone. 

At this time, Sterne was taken "very ill". He had come 
to London, says his dedication to Lord Spencer, in "bad 
health", which he attributed to hard writing, combined with 
preaching through the summer. The design of going abroad 
for a long rest was then in his mind, but he could not quite 
see his way to it on account of the expense — unless he could 
find a bear to lead round Europe. His serious illness — he 
again broke a vessel in his lungs — settled the question for him. 
As France and England were still nominally at war, though 
the fighting had ended, Sterne could obtain no passport for 
his safety. Somewhat concerned, he appealed to Pitt, who 
gave him letters to members of the French ministry, behav- 
ing, says Sterne, "in every respect to me like a man of good 
breeding and good nature". The Archbishop of York "most 
humanely ' ' granted him a leave of absence ; Garrick lent him 
twenty pounds, which was not repaid for several years, if 
ever; and towards the end of the second week in January, 
Sterne started across the Channel in a race with death. The 
first intelligence of him that came back to London was the 

* Monthly Beview, Feb., 1762; Critical Eeview, April, 1762. 



SHANDY HALL CONTINUED 269 

following item in the London Chronicle under date of 
February 2-4: 

"Private Letters from Paris bring an account of the 
death of the Kev. Mr. Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy.' ' 

The sad news passed on from one newspaper to another, 
with occasional comment, by correspondents. No sooner was 
Sterne supposed to be dead than all his faults were forgotten 
against him in the vivid impression left by his last beautiful 
volumes. An old soldier, for example, signing himself A 
Plebeian, who had been captivated by my uncle Toby, sent a 
letter to St. James's Chronicle for February 16-18, saying: 

"I see there are Letters in Town mentioning the Death 

of Mr. S : I hope it is not true; but whether true or 

false, it is to be hoped no Man, but one who can boast of a 
better Heart and greater Knowledge, will, for the future, 
ever employ his pen to sully the Reputation of a Man, who 
has given the World the greatest Character that Human 
nature can attain to." 

Subsequently another Plebeian, who had read his name- 
sake's communication, but did not know that the newspaper 
had already printed the episode of Le Fever, remonstrated 
with the editor in these words: 

"I am surprised that you, who are capable of distinguish- 
ing what is worthy of the public Notice, should have omitted 
thus long the inserting in your Chronicle the affecting Story 
of Lieut. Le Fevre, from the last Volume of Tristram 
Shandy. As a Friend to Society, as one who feels for the 
Woes of another, and knows the Force of Example, I 
beseech you to insert it, when you have Room for so long, but 
inimitable Performance. Till I saw this Letter, I was not 
so great an Admirer of the Author of Tristram Shandy, as to 
be displeased to see some of the dirt thrown at him stick to 
his Coat; but this Letter has made me a penitent Convert, 
believing it impossible, that a Man so capable of painting 
the lively Impressions on his Uncle Toby's Heart, on hear- 
ing an affecting Story, can himself wear a heart that is not 
made of the best Materials." 

A few weeks later, "the report" of Mr. Sterne's death 
was announced as " premature "j and a wit discoursed in 



270 LAUEENCE STEENE 

verse upon it in St. James's Chronicle for March 6-9. The 
lines, catching the tone and movement of Sir John Suckling's 
"What! no more favours? Not a ribbon more?", ran on 
fluently : 

"How! Shandy dead! (a well-bred Lady cries) 
With him each Grace, each social Virtue dies! 
No more, alas ! shall that instructive Sage 
Expose to Light the Follies of the Age; 
No more dear Satire through the Nation reign, 
With Shandy fled to Pluto's drear Domain. 

w w w w *«• 

Madame your sad Solicitude dispell, 

Illustrious Yorick's still alive, and well! 

Th' ingenious Writer yet again shall soar, 

On Fancy's Wing, to heights unknown before. 

The dire Eeport which filled our Minds with Woe, 

Was, doubtless, raised by some illiterate Foe." 

In the meantime the rumours from Paris had reached 
York and Coxwold before any of Sterne's letters to his wife 
or to Lord Fauconberg. Whereupon his parishioners, wrote 
the steward of Newburgh Priory, all went into mourning out 
of respect to his memory.* 

* Eeport on Manuscripts in Various Collections, Vol. II, p. xvii 
(London, 1903). 



CHAPTER XII 

PARIS 

JANUAEY— JUNE 1762 

Though still alive, Sterne had barely escaped the fate 
that was beginning to press upon him. The dread disease of 
his youth, which had been held in check since his college 
days, had broken out again to his alarm. The last hemor- 
rhage left him so weak that, in his way of saying it, his 
"spider legs" could no longer support him; his voice was 
gone to a whisper, and his face was as pale as a dishclout. 
But hope at no time deserted him. ' ' When Death ' ', he said, 
addressing his buoyant spirits in memory of the crisis, 
"knocked at my door — ye bad him come again; and in so 
gay a tone of careless indifference, did ye do it, that he 
doubted of his commission." The unwelcome guest, non- 
plussed by his reception, turned from Sterne's lodgings, say- 
ing as he went in apology for his intrusion, "There must 
certainly be some mistake in this matter ". " By heaven ! ' ' 
vowed Sterne, in a hoarse whisper across the table to 
Eugenius, as soon as death was gone from his door, "By 

heaven! I will lead him a dance he little thinks of for I 

will gallop * * * without looking once behind me, to the 
banks of the Garonne; and if I hear him clattering at my 

heels I'll scamper away to mount Vesuvius" Eugenius, 

says Sterne, meaning thereby Hall-Stevenson, who was with 

him in London, "led me to my chaise Allons! said I; the 

postboy gave a crack with his whip off I went like a 

cannon, and in a half dozen bounds got into Dover." 

At Dover awaited him a rough mid-winter passage across 
the Channel. While the sea chopped about with the wind in 
wild sport, Sterne lay in his cabin, "sick, sick, sick", sure 
that death had him by the throat this time. He landed at 
Calais in the evening, and left early the next morning by 

271 



272 LAUEENCE STEENE 

post for Paris via Boulogne, Montreuil, Abbeville, Amiens, 
and Chantilly. He was too ill on the route to observe much, 
though "passing through the finest country ", and he seems 
to have slept or dozed most of the journey, except when 
aroused by some accident to the chaise or by the postboy's 
demand for his fare at the successive stages. We should not 
forget, however, Janatone, the beautiful daughter of the inn- 
keeper at Montreuil, who greeted him as he stepped from his 
chaise on a fine evening, and whom he stood watching after 
supper, as she sat knitting "a white thread stocking, * * * 
long and taper", pinned to her knee, as if to say it was her 
own. All the way, save for brief intervals like this, his 
imagination was haunted by Death, that "long-striding 
scoundrel of a scare-sinner" ever posting at his heels. If 
he were to be overtaken, he prayed that the encounter might 
take place at some "decent inn", away from the concern of 
friends. The inn must have been very bad at Abbeville, 
where he lay a night, for he ordered his chaise at four o 'clock 
the next morning, that he might not meet the scoundrel there, 
of all inns in the universe. Thus travelling in haste from 
post to post, "a pale man clad in black" was driven into 
Paris on the evening of January 16 or 17, 1762, completely 
exhausted by the journey. The physicians whom he con- 
sulted told him plainly that he "could not live a month". 
At best the only hope they were able to hold out to him was 
a sojourn in the south of France for the winter. The man 
who sent the notice of Sterne's death to the London news- 
papers was only anticipating, as every good news-writer 
should do, an event certain to occur by the time his letter 
reached its destination. 

But it was ordered quite otherwise. To the surprise of 
his physicians, Sterne mended so rapidly that by the time he 
was able to go south they all advised him to stay on in Paris 
for the present. His quick recovery he attributed not to 
their medicines, but to nature, who was allowed to work her 
cure in the clear elastic air of Paris, aided by novel sights 
and the attentions of a host of new friends. When first 
heard from directly, he formed one of a company of "fifteen 
or sixteen English of distinction" living with or near one 



PAEIS 273 

another in the Faubourg St. Germain, a quarter of the city 
to which strangers usually resorted. They dined and 
supped together, occasionally attended the theatre en masse, 
and in smaller groups made excursions in and about the city. 
Among these gentlemen was George Macartney, — not yet Sir 
George, — "a handsome and dashing young Irishman", who 
was to have a long and honourable career as diplomatist and 
colonial governor. He had come abroad as companion to 
one of Lord Holland's sons — either Stephen Fox or his 
younger brother, Charles James Fox, the future statesman. 
Both of Lord Holland's sons were mere striplings. Stephen, 
known as "the eldest cub of the Fox", was only seventeen 
years old; and Charles James, still a student at Eton, was 
four years his junior. It is almost incredible that Lord 
Holland should have wished to initiate his sons into social 
dissipation so early; but such was his premeditated plan, 
and Macartney was chosen as his agent. With Macartney 
and "young Mr. Fox" — Stephen most likely — Sterne made 
his first visit to Versailles ; and the next morning Macartney 
introduced him to Monsieur Titon, an aged patron of art 
and literature, to whom Sterne had letters from Garrick. 
Mr. Fox took him for a week down the Seine to St. Germain- 
en-Laye for change and rest, and often went with him, pay- 
ing the entrance fees, I take it, to one of the two theatres. 
They usually attended the Comedie Franchise, close at hand, 
near the Boulevard St. Germain. The other theatre, the 
Comedie Italienne, which had just united with the Opera 
Comique, was further away in the Mauconseil quarter. At 
the Comedie Francaise, Sterne saw and admired Clairon, 
Dumesnil, and Preville. 

Preville, whom he saw in Boissy's Le Frangais a Londres, 
he declared to be "Mercury himself", so light was he in 
appearance and manners. Clairon he thought "extremely 
great", especially in Iphigenie; and Dumesnil, "in some 
places still greater than her". He was invited to Clairon 's 
receptions on Thursday, when the actress "gives to eat (as 
they say here) to all that are hungry and dry"; and before 
the winter was over he was admitted to the shrines of all 
"the best goddesses" of the theatre. For Garrick 's sake, as 

18 



274 LAURENCE STERNE 

well as for his own, he interested himself in all things 
dramatic, purchasing and sending to his friend comic operas 
and pamphlets on the stage, and trying to persuade him to 
bring out in London an adaptation of Diderot's Natural Son 
which had been made by "a lady of talents". But as time 
wore on, the French theatre and all matters pertaining to it 
lost their attraction for him. He was bored by the conversa- 
tions heard everywhere over the comic opera, then at the 
height of fashion, and by passionate disputes over what 
should be done with the Jesuits — whether they should be 
tolerated or expelled from the kingdom and their property be 
confiscated. "0 God!" he cries out in a letter to Garrick, 
"they have nothing here, which gives the nerves so smart a 

blow, as those great characters in the hands of Garrick! 

but I forgot I am writing to the man himself. * * * The 
whole city of Paris is hewitch'd with the comic opera, and 
if it was not for the affair of the Jesuits, which takes up one 

half of our talk, the comic opera would have it all It 

is a tragical nuisance in all companies as it is, and was it not 
for some sudden starts and dashes — of Shandeism, which 
now and then either break the thread, or entangle it so, that 
the devil himself would be puzzled in winding it off — I 

should die a martyr this by the way I never will." 

As to the Comedie Francaise, where they performed 
mostly tragedies, Sterne soon grew tired of the long moralis- 
ing speeches of the actors, saying he got enough preaching in 
his youth. "A tragedy", he tells Garrick, "is to be damn'd 

to-night peace be with it, and the gentle brain which 

made it!" When he wanted to hear a sermon, he pre- 
ferred to go and listen to Pere Clement, preacher to the 
King of Poland, whom one of the parishes — St. Roche prob- 
ably — had engaged to give "a dozen sermons" through Lent 
at a cost of 600 livres. A fine sketch of the dramatic orator 
he drew for Mrs. Sterne: "He is King Stanislas's preacher 
most excellent indeed! his matter solid, and to the pur- 
pose ; his manner, more than theatrical, and greater, both in 
his action and delivery, than Madame Clairon, who, you 
must know, is the Garrick of the stage here; he has infinite 
variety, and keeps up the attention by it wonderfully; his 



PAEIS 275 

pulpit, oblong, with three seats in it, into which he occa- 
sionally casts himself; goes on, then rises, by a gradation of 
four steps, each of which he profits by, as his discourse 
inclines him ; in short 'tis a stage, and the variety of his tones 
would make you imagine there were no less than five or six 
actors on it together." 

Always keeping in touch with the English colony and its 
amusements, Sterne was drawn, within a fortnight, into the 
whirl of French society, where he reigned as the lion of the 
hour. It was his first London reception all over again, under 
clear Parisian skies. At the moment English newspapers 
were announcing his death, he was writing to Garrick in the 
elated tone of his letters from London to Miss Fourmantelle 
two years before : 

"Well! here I am, my friend, as much improved in my 
health, for the time, as ever your friendship could wish, or 
at least your faith give credit to by the bye I am some- 
what worse in my intellectuals ; for my head is turned round 
with what I see, and the unexpected honours I have met with 
here. Tristram was almost as much known here as in Lon- 
don, at least among your men of condition and learning, and 
has got me introduced into so many circles ( 'tis comme a 
Londres). I have just now a fortnight's dinners and sup- 
pers upon my hands — my application to the Count de 
Choiseul goes on swimmingly, for not only M. Pelletiere 
(who, by the bye, sends ten thousand civilities to you and 
Mrs. Garrick) has undertaken my affair, but the Count de 

Limbourgh the Baron d'Holbach, has offered any security 

for the inoffensiveness of my behaviour in France — 'tis 

more, you rogue ! than you will do This Baron is one of 

the most learned noblemen here, the great protector of wits, 
and the Scavans who are no wits — keeps open house three 
days a week — his house is now, as yours was to me, my 

own — he lives at great expence. 'Twas an odd incident 

when I was introduced to the Count de Bissie, which I was 

at his desire 1 found him reading Tristram this 

grandee does me great honours, and gives me leave to go a 
private way through his apartments into the Palais Royal, 
to view the Duke of Orleans' collections, every day I have 



276 LAUEENCE STEBNE 

time 1 have been at the doctors of Sorbonne 1 hope 

in a fortnight to break through, or rather from, the delights 
of this place, which, in the sgavoir vivre, exceeds all the 
places, I believe, in this section of the globe. ' ' 

It should not be inferred that everybody in the French 
capital was reading Tristram Shandy. New to Paris, Sterne 
was yet to learn to make due allowance for French politeness 
in the many compliments paid to him as the author of a 
"famous book". Tristram was not translated until years 
after Sterne's death, and it was never very well understood 
in France. Still, the book was already known in a way. 
Anglomaniaes here and there certainly had copies, which they 
tried to read — Voltaire with most success. For the rest, 
dependence was placed upon those French journals devoted 
largely to European literature, which did not fail to give 
resumes of Tristram, prefaced with anecdotes of the Anglican 
clergyman who had written it to the dismay of his clerical 
brethren. The attention of literary Paris was first called 
to Sterne's book by the Journal Encyclopedique in the num- 
ber for April, 1760, issued on the first of May. "C'est ici", 
declared the London correspondent, "le monstre d' Horace. 
Des pensees morales, fines, delicates, faillantes, solides, fortes, 
impies, hazardees, temeraires; voila ce que Von trouve dans 
cet ouvrage. * * * L'Auteur n'a ni plan, ni principes, ni 
systeme: il ne veut que parler, et malkeureusement on 
V Scout e avec plaisir. La vivacite de son imagination, le 
feu de ses portraits, le caractere de ses reflexions, tout plait, 
tout interesse et tout seduit." Garrick, it was added, had 
given the ecclesiastic the freedom of his theatre and a lord 
had presented him with a benefice. The same periodical 
also noticed the second instalment of Tristram Shandy in its 
issue for May, 1761, saying f 'Toute le monde convient, apres 
avoir lu cette brochure, qu'elle n'a pas le sens commun, et 
cependent on se Varrache des mains; quelle inconsequence!" 

Sterne was likewise taken up by Suard, the journalist 
and man of letters, in the Gazette Litteraire; and Voltaire, 
who was then at Ferney writing his Dictionnaire Philoso- 
phique, (1764), quoted from Trim's sermon a passage con- 
taining the most subtile analysis within his reading of the 



PAEIS 277 

insidious ways in which gain and lust may deceive the con- 
science. The portraits of Dr. Slop and the two Shandys, 
Voltaire thought "superior to the paintings of Rembrandt 
and the sketches of Callot"; while the "comic book" as a 
whole might be best compared with "those little satires of 
antiquity which contained qualities so piquant and fascinat- 
ing".* Finally, Voltaire gave Sterne the title by which he 
was to be henceforth known in France; he called him, with 
Swift in mind, "the second Rabelais of England". The 
information about Sterne that accompanied him through the 
salons was thus of that vague kind most apt to excite 
curiosity to see and converse with the famous author. He 
bore withal the credentials of Pitt and Garrick. 

Sterne entered Parisian society, his letter to Garrick 
would imply, through the salon of Baron d'Holbach, the 
Encyclopedist, who became his personal surety until a pass- 
port could be obtained from the ministry. D'Holbach, or 
the Baron, as his friends addressed him, was a cosmopolitan 
of large wealth, most simple and affable in bearing, and 
altogether the best type of gentleman under the old regime. 
He divided his year between his mansion in the Rue Royal, 
the very heart of aristocratic Paris, and Grandval, a beauti- 
ful chateau a few miles up the Seine, where he entertained 
favourite guests for days and weeks. Because of his hos- 
pitality towards all persons of distinction, whether French 
or foreign, he was known facetiously as "the host of Europe". 
"When in Paris, he invited to his table, every Sunday and 
every Thursday, a company of philosophers and men of let- 
ters, numbering from ten to twenty. A lavish dinner, served 
at two o'clock, was prolonged by conversation until the hour 
for the theatre. The Baron's salon was aptly called by one 
who frequented it "the Institute of France before there was 
one ' ' ; for at his table were canvassed all questions of science, 
art, literature, politics, and religion. It was there, says the 
Abbe Morellet, who often dined at d'Holbach 's with Sterne, 
that Roux and Darcet explained their theory of the earth; 
Marmontel set forth the principles of his Elements of Litera- 
ture; and the host expounded his system of dogmatic atheism 

* (Euvres de Voltaire, VII, 369 (Paris, 1876). 



278 LAUEENCE STEENE 

so clearly and persuasively as to almost win the assent of 
men who in their hearts could not accept his theories. On 
the other hand, Horace Walpole found the "Holbachian 
club" very dull. "I forgot to tell you", he wrote from 
Paris to George Selwyn in 1765, "that I sometimes go to 
Baron d'Olbach's; but I have left off his dinners, as there 
was no bearing the authors, and philosophers, and savants, 
of which he has a pigeon-house full. They soon turned my 
head with a new system of antediluvian deluges, which they 
have invented to prove the eternity of matter. The Baron 
is persuaded that Pall Mall is paved with lava or deluge 
stones. In short, nonsense for nonsense, I like the Jesuits 
better than the philosophers."* Sterne, too, with his im- 
perfect knowledge of French, was at first restless under the 
long discourses of the savants, whom he was careful not to 
include among the wits; but, we may be certain, he never 
betrayed his impatience. He caught the Holbachian manner 
and was soon able to discourse in rivalry with the best of the 
circle. 

At times four great intelligences shone in upon the Hol- 
bachian group. With the two greatest of them — Voltaire 
and Rousseau, — Sterne had no personal acquaintance; he 
may or may not have known the shy d'Alembert; but he 
formed an intimate friendship with Diderot, who was then, 
like himself, almost a member of the Baron's household. It 
was a delightful family as Diderot himself described it in 
letters to Mademoiselle Volland. Madame d'Holbach was a 
most agreeable woman, douce et honnete, with an aversion 
for her husband's and all other philosophy. There were 
several pretty children and a sprightly mother-in-law, 
Madame d ' Aine, who knew and repeated all the current gossip 
and scandal. Diderot, when Sterne knew him, was midway 
in the Encyclopedie, a work which helped on immensely the 
emancipation of France from outworn dogmas and philoso- 
phies. Far apart as the two men were in their attitude 
towards existing institutions, the one a conservative and the 
other an iconoclast, they were nevertheless closely bound by 
intellect and temperament. Both were sentimentalists; both 

* Letters, edited by Toynbee, VI, 370. 



PAEIS 279 

admired Locke, though they read the master differently ; and 
both, we may say it, easily fell into buffoonery over their 
burgundy, to the delight, one may fancy, of old Madame 
d'Aine, who matched them jest for jest, while the modest 
Madame d'Holbach, "exquisitely dressed", sat and listened 
complacently to the wild and reckless warfare. It is a bit 
amusing to find the English sentimentalist complaining that 
Diderot's Natural Son, as he read it in translation, contained 
too much sentiment for his own taste, and so probably for 
Garrick's also. In memory of their friendship, the details 
of which have mostly slipped into obscurity, Sterne sent over 
to Becket for a box of books as a present to Monsieur Diderot. 
The box must contain, said the motley memorandum, the six 
volumes of Shandy, Chaucer, Locke complete, the drumstick 
edition of Colley Gibber, together with Cibber's Apology, 
Tillotson's Sermons in small volumes, and "all the Works of 
Pope — the neatest and cheapest edition — (therefore I suppose 
not Warburton's) ". Poor Warburton! In return, Diderot 
honoured Sterne some years after his death, by imitating and 
paraphrasing Shandy in a novel called Jacques le Fataliste. 
At d'Holbach 's, Sterne met, in the person of Jean Baptiste 
Suard, a young man who played about him as a sort of 
Boswell. Suard was born and educated at Besancon — the 
birthplace of Victor Hugo, — where his father held the post 
of secretary to the university. An incident of Suard 's youth, 
as bearing upon his character, is worth telling. A mere boy 
just out of the university, he was summoned before the 
governor of Besancon as a witness against a companion who, 
after fighting a duel with an officer of the garrison, im- 
mediately went into hiding to escape punishment. Suard 
refused to betray his friend. He was himself consequently 
arrested and imprisoned for a period on the island of Sainte- 
Marguerite off the coast of Cannes, where, in want of other 
books, his time was passed in reading the Bible and Bayle's 
Dictionary. After the death of his father, the youth drifted 
to Paris, with a view to literature. He was befriended by 
Buffon and Madame Geoffrin, and more substantially by 
Panckoucke, the well-known publisher, whose gifted daughter 
he married. During these years, he learned English and 



280 LAUKENCE STERNE 

acquired a very good knowledge of contemporary English 
literature. For a time he was associated with the Abbe 
Frangois Arnaud on the Journal Etranger; and when 
Sterne came to Paris, Suard and his former colleague were 
projecting the Gazette Litteraire, a similar periodical under 
the auspices of the foreign ministry. At the same time Suard 
was also preparing for the press a Supplement aux Lettres 
de Clarisse Harlowe. Ten or twelve years later, he was 
elected to the Academy, largely through the influence of 
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Suard lived on through the 
Eevolution and the Consulate, translating many English 
books, and taking an active part in scientific and literary 
societies, especially in the reorganisation of the Institute of 
France. 

Suard, only twenty-eight years old when he first saw 
Sterne, was an impressionable young man, extremely polished 
in manner and very facile with his pen. Under the mask of 
his excessive politeness, however, was a keen intelligence and 
an independent judgment which could assert itself when 
necessary, as Madame Geoffrin found when she tried to check 
and direct his tastes. Boswell-like, he watched Sterne closely 
in and out of the salons, noting the peculiarities of his ' ' comic 
figure", his gestures, and the turn of his phrases, whether 
English or French; and for minute observation invited him 
often to his house, where he was equally welcomed by 
Madame Suard. After Sterne had come and gone, Madame 
Suard wrote a most just and delicate appreciation of the 
Sentimental Journey; while Sterne's " habitual gestures and 
words were so engraven in the memory and imagination of 
her husband that he could never hear Sterne's name men- 
tioned without believing that he really saw him and was 
listening to him". 

Suard often said that he had never seen a man at all like 
Sterne — always courteous to a degree and yet perfectly frank 
in his criticism of the French and their ways, always in a 
sense the same and yet always at the mercy of momentary 
impressions. The Court went into mourning, and Sterne at 
once assumed the badge. He came into France with only 
a reading knowledge of French; but as soon as Fox and 
Macartney left Paris, he took lodgings in a French family, 



PAEIS 281 

that he might honour his hosts by speaking their language, 
if not accurately, at least fluently. One night the whole fair 
of St. Germain — "a town in miniature" — burned to the 
ground, and "hundreds of unhappy people", who had lost 
their all, were driven from their booths to the streets in tears. 
The next morning, Sterne's barber, as he was shaving him, 
wept over the terrible misfortune to the poor creatures, and 
Sterne wept with him. Stopping one day before the statue 
of Henry the Fourth, on the Pont-Neuf, a crowd gathered 
about him, attracted by his peculiar movements. Turning 
round, Sterne called out: "Why are you all staring at me? 
Follow my example, all of you ! ' ' And they all fell on their 
knees with him before the King of France. A slave, says 
Garat, Suard's biographer, would never have rendered, 
unbidden, such homage to Henry the Fourth. 

On one occasion, Suard asked Sterne to account for his 
extraordinary personality — for a temperament really stable 
and yet so volatile to all appearance. Sterne, in an unusually 
serious mood, readily complied with his friend's request, in a 
formal statement, which almost startles by its truth and 
relative completeness ; for genius, it is supposed, never under- 
stands itself, and Sterne has said equivocally elsewhere that 
he could give a better account of any other man in the world 
than of himself. Whether the self -revelation took place over 
the wine at Baron d'Holbach's or when the two men were 
alone together, the narrative does not specify. His so-called 
originality, declared Sterne, should be attributed "to one of 
those delicate organisations in which predominates the sacred 
informing principle of the soul, that immortal flame which 
nourishes life and devours it at the same time, and which 
exalts and varies, in sudden and unexpected ways, all sensa- 
tions". This creative faculty, said Sterne, "we call im- 
agination or sensibility, according as it expresses itself, under 
the pen of a writer, in depicting scenes or in portraying the 
passions". But beyond his natural endowment, must be 
considered, added Sterne, certain acquired traits affecting 
mind and style, which had come from "the daily reading of 
the Old and New Testaments, books which were to his liking 
as well as necessary to his profession"; and from a prolonged 



282 LAUBENCE STERNE 

study of Locke, ' ' which he had begun in youth and continued 
through life". Any one, he told Suard, who was acquainted 
with Locke might discover the philosopher's directing hand 
"in all his pages, in all his lines, in all his expressions". 
In conclusion, he said of Locke's philosophy, which had thus 
tempered everywhere his thought and manner of procedure, 
in his Sermons as well as in Tristram Shandy: "It is a phil- 
osophy which never attempts to explain the miracle of sensa- 
tion ; but reverently leaving that miracle in the hands of 
God, it unfolds all the secrets of the mind ; and shunning the 
errors to which other theories of knowledge are exposed, it 
arrives at all truths accessible to the understanding." 
Finally, it is "a sacred philosophy, without which the world 
will never have a true universal religion, a true science of 
morals, nor will man without it ever attain to real command 
over nature".* 

Sterne's singular and piquant personality, together with 
his bonhomie, made him a welcome visitor everywhere. He 
edified philosophers by his clear and enthusiastic exposition 
of Locke; he entertained wits by his jests and droll stories; 
and awakened, says Suard 's biographer, "new emotions in 
tender hearts by his naive and touching sensibility ' '. Among 
these tender hearts, may we include Suard 's friends, Madame 
Geoffrin and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, whose salons 
ranked first for intellectual brilliancy? We may, I think, 
and must. True, Sterne nowhere mentions these fascinating 
women, but for that matter he nowhere mentions his Boswell. 
A few years later, when the Sentimental Journey came out, 
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse wrote two short pieces in Sterne's 
style, one of which recites a signal act of charity on the part 
of Madame Geoffrin. Sterne is represented as listening to 
the pathetic tale and as being so overcome by it that he 
"clasped Madame Geoffrin in his arms and embraced her 
with ecstacy".f 

As in this imaginary scene, Sterne always let his emo- 
tions run forward while he scampered on after them, whither- 

* D. J. Garat, Memoir es Historiques sur la Vie de M. Suard, II, 
147-152 (Paris, 1820). 

f (Euvres Posthumes d'Alembert, II, 22-42 (Paris, 1799) ; and Garat, 
as cited above. 



PAEIS 283 

soever they might lead. "I laugh till I cry", he wrote to 
Garrick, "and in the same tender moments, cry till I laugh. 
I Shandy it more than ever, and verily do believe, that by 
mere Shandeism, sublimated by a laughter-loving people, I 
fence as much against infirmities, as I do by the benefit of 
air and climate." In a similar vein ran a letter to Hall- 
Stevenson from his friend Monsieur Tollot, a gentleman of 
Geneva and an admirer of Rousseau, then travelling in 
France after a nervous breakdown. Falling in with Sterne 
at Paris, he was struck by the buoyancy of the pale and sick 
Yorick, in contrast with his own miserable temperament, which 
never let him forget his headaches and vertigoes. On a rainy 
day in April, when wind and rain were so violent that he was 
compelled to stay in and betake himself to divers glasses of 
Bordeaux in order to keep off the blue devils, Monsieur Tollot 
sat down and wrote to the master of Skelton, saying by the 
way: "I sometimes envy", to translate the Genevan's 
French, "the happy disposition of our friend Mr. Sterne. 
Everything assumes the colour of the rose for that happy 
mortal; and what appears to others dark and gloomy, pre- 
sents to him only a blithe and merry aspect. His only 
pursuit is pleasure ; but he is not like most others who know 
not how to enjoy pleasure when it is within their grasp ; for 
he drinks the bowl to the last drop and still his thirst is 
unquenched. ' '* 

Perhaps Sterne enjoyed himself most in the society of 
Claude de Thiard, the Comte de Bissy, and in the coteries to 
which "this grandee" introduced him. The count, then 
forty years old, had behind him a conspicuous military 
career, in which he reached the rank of lieutenant-general. 
In peace he had devoted himself to English studies, trans- 
lating Bolingbroke 's Patriot King, which gained him admis- 
sion to the Academy. Called in from the field, as the Seven 
Years' War was now really over, he was living at Court, with 
apartments in the Palais Royal. It was a graceful compli- 
ment that he paid Sterne when the humourist first called, 
by appointment, for aid in securing a passport from the 

* W. Durrant Cooper. Seven Letters written by Sterne and his 
Friends, 21-22 (London, printed for private circulation, 1844). 



284 LAURENCE STERNE 

Due de Choiseul, the prime minister. Tristram Shandy lay 
open upon the count's table. Sterne afterward played with 
the scene fancifully in the Sentimental Journey, substituting 
Hamlet for Shandy. But we may, I think, safely recon- 
struct certain parts of the conversation from Sterne's im- 
aginative account of it. They talked of Shakespeare and of 
Shandy. The count was puzzled by Sterne's assumption of 
the name of Yorick, for which he could divine no reason. 
Sterne, reading the count's perplexed face, led him on into 
the notion that he was really jester to his Majesty George 
the Third, and at length disillusioned him humorously: 

"Pardonnez moi, Mons. le Count, said I 1 am not the 

king's jester. But you are Yorick? Yes. Et vous 

plaisantezf 1 answered, indeed I did jest but was not 

paid for it 'twas entirely at my own expence. 

"We have no jester at court, Mons. le Count, said I; 

the last was in the licentious reign of Charles II. since 

which time our manners have been so gradually refining, 
that our court at present is so full of patriots, who wish for 

nothing but the honours and wealth of their country 

and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so 
devout there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of 

"Voila un persiflage! cried the Count." 

The interview was followed by the first of many invita- 
tions to dinner. One day the count enquired how he liked 
the French, and whether he had found them as urbane as the 
world gave them credit of being. Sterne replied that they 
were indeed polished "to an excess". His host, noting the 
word excesse, asked him to explain frankly what he meant 
by the implied criticism. Sterne went on to say adroitly 
and politely that courtesy, though in and of itself a com- 
mendable virtue, might lead to a loss of "variety and origi- 
nality of character". To illustrate his hypothesis, Sterne 
took out of his pocket "a few of King William's shillings as 
smooth as glass" and proceeded: 

"See, Mons. le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them 

before him upon the table by jingling and rubbing one 

against another for seventy years together in one body's 



PARIS 285 

pocket or another's, they are become so much alike, you can 
scarce distinguish one shilling from another. 

"The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and 
passing but few people's hands, preserve the first sharp- 
nesses which the fine hand of Nature has given them they 

are not so pleasant to feel but, in return, the legend is so 

visible, that at the first look you see whose image and 
superscription they bear. But the French, Mons. le Count, 
added I (wishing to soften what I had said), have so many 

excellencies, they can the better spare this they are a 

loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good-temper 'd 

people as is under heaven if they have a fault, they are 

too serious. 

ll Mon Dieu! cried the Count, rising out of his chair. 

" 'Mais vous plaisantez, said he, correcting his exclamation. 

1 laid my hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity 

assured him it was my most settled opinion."* 

Having once mastered the art of courtesy, the humourist 
easily outdid the French as he passed through the great 
houses to which his friendship with the count recommended 
him. Sterne and Choiseul met in one of the fashionable 
salons. The duke observing a group about an odd-looking 
Englishman and overhearing scraps of the conversation, 
turned to a friend and enquired "Who the deuce is that man 
over there, that Chevalier Shandy." On being told that it 
was the author of the bizarre book which he had heard of 
if not read, he stepped up to Monsieur Sterne, and a dialogue 
ensued which made Sterne "as vain as a devil". The duke 
subsequently signed a passport for Chevalier Sterne, remark- 
ing pleasantly, as he handed it to the Comte de Bissy, that 
un homme qui fit ne peut etre dangereux. In return, Sterne 
begged that the prime minister be assured that he had not 
come into France to spy out the nakedness of the land. 

On being introduced by the Comte de Bissy to the Due de 
Biron, Marechal de France, who, says Sterne, had formerly 

* The essential truth of this anecdote is confirmed in an article 
which appeared in the London Chronicle for April 16-18, 1765, or nearly 
two years before the publication of the Sentimental Journey. Under the 
heading, "Foreign Literature ' ', the newspaper gave an abstract of 
Suard on Sterne, from the Gazette Litteraire de I 'Europe. 



286 LAUEENCE STEENE 

"signaliz'd himself by some small feats of chivalry in the 
Cour d' amour, and had dress 'd himself out to the idea of 
tilts and tournaments ever since", the duke expressed a wish 
to cross the Channel to see the English ladies. "Stay where 
you are, I beseech you, Mons. le Marquis", broke in Sterne, 

forgetting the duke's title, " Les Messrs Anglois can 

scarce get a kind look from them as it is." The duke invited 
Sterne home to a ten o'clock supper. In like manner, Sterne 
made the acquaintance of La Popeliniere, the richest of the 
farmers-general, who, as described in a letter to Mrs. Sterne, 
"lives here like a sovereign prince; keeps a company of 
musicians always in his house, and a full set of players ; and 
gives concerts and plays alternately to the grandees of this 
metropolis". Instead of the English ladies, the farmer- 
general enquired about the English taxes, saying "They were 
very considerable, he heard". Sterne admitted that the 
taxes of his country were considerable enough, "if we knew 
but how to collect them", and made the gentleman a low 
bow. That evening Sterne received an invitation "to his 
music and table" for the season. 

La Popeliniere had a musical rival in Baron de Bagge, 
chamberlain to the King of Prussia. The baron was a melo- 
maniac of large wealth, who fancied that he possessed great 
musical talent, though he could scarce play the violin. He 
came to Paris and opened a salon with an array of musicians, 
whom he paid to take imaginary lessons from him. It was 
not Sterne but another who once remarked to the baron that 
he had never heard any one play the violin like him. Sterne 
found the baron's concerts "very fine, both music and com- 
pany". The next night after attending one of them, he 
supped at the Temple, with the Prince de Conti, who lived 
there in great state, with a court of his own. 

With much amusement Sterne studied the various femi- 
nine types seen in the salons, a summary of which he gave 
in a sketch of Madame de Vence, said to have been a de- 
scendant of Madame de Sevigne. "There are three epochas", 
he observed in speaking of her, "in the empire of a French 
woman — She is coquette — then deist — then devote. * * * 
When thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her domin- 



PAEIS 287 

ions of the slaves of love, she repeoples them with slaves of 

infidelity and then with the slaves of the church. 

Madame de V[ence] was vibrating betwixt the first of these 
epochas." Seated upon the sofa together "for the sake of 
disputing the point of religion more closely", Sterne told her 
that, whereas it might be her principle to believe nothing, it 
was nevertheless a most dangerous thing for a beauty to turn 
deist, and thereby remove all those checks and restraints which 
religion cast about the passions. "I declare", says Sterne, 
"I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de 

V[ence] She affirmed to Mons. Dfiderot] and the Abbe 

Mforellet], that in one half -hour I had said more for revealed 
religion than all their Encyclopedia had said aginst it." 
Madame de Vence put off, as it turned out, the epoch of 
deism for two years. 

"I remember", says Sterne further, "it was in this 
Coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was shewing 
the necessity of a first cause, that the young Count de 
Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the 
room to tell me my solitaire was pinn'd too strait about my 

neck It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking 

down upon his own but a word, Mons. Yorick, to the 

wise 

" And from the wise, Mons. le Count, replied I mak- 
ing him a bow is enough. 

"The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour 
than ever I was embraced by mortal man." 

Anecdotes must always be accepted with a grain of allow- 
ance. "I do a thousand things", Sterne wrote to Garrick, 
"which cut no figure, but in the doing — and as in London, 
I have the honour of having done and said a thousand things 
I never did or dream 'd of — and yet I dream abundantly." 
The anecdotes that I have mingled with the narrative, how- 
ever, are very much better authenticated than is the usual 
case, — some by Suard through his biographer Garat, and most 
by Sterne himself, who, of course, ornamented them after his 
own fashion. In paying the French in their own polite coin, 
Sterne came at times, as he felt himself, perilously near 
sycophancy. "For three weeks together", he said, shorten- 



288 LAURENCE STERNE 

ing the period for artistic purposes, "I was of every man's 

opinion I met. Pardi! ce Mons. Yorick a autant d 'esprit 

que nous autres. II raisonne bien, said another C'est 

un bon enfant, said a third, And at this price I could 

have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life 

at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest reckoning 1 grew ashamed 

of it. It was the gain of a slave every sentiment of 

honour revolted against it the higher I got, the more was 

I forced upon my beggarly system." But to go on. In one 
of the salons Sterne encountered Crebillon the younger, wit 
and novelist, author of Les Egaremens de Cozur et de 
VE sprit. Before they separated, they entered into a comic 
convention. Crebillon agreed to write Sterne "an expostu- 
latory letter upon the indecorums of Tristram Shandy" and 
Sterne was to reply with "a recrimination upon the liber- 
ties" in Crebillon 's works. The two pamphlets were "to be 
printed together — Crebillon against Sterne — Sterne against 
Crebillon — the copy to be sold, and the money equally 
divided." The scheme miscarried, either because, as Sterne 
predicted, Crebillon was too lazy to perform his part of the 
jest, or because — and more likely — he was unable to read and 
understand Tristram Shandy. 

Of all the prizes Sterne drew in the French capital, none 
pleased him quite so much as his winning the attention of 
Louis Philippe, Due d 'Orleans. Though only thirty-seven 
years old, the duke had already had a brilliant career in the 
army. At Dettingen a horse was shot under him. The war 
with England over, he had come in from the field, and was 
giving himself up, like other officers of rank, to pleasure 
and friendships, alternating his residence, with a strolling 
court, between the Palais Royal and his seat at Bagnolet. 
For his entertainment he kept in his household Carmontelle, to 
write novels and farces and to paint his friends at Court. 
Struck by Sterne's eccentric character, the duke requested the 
pleasure of adding, from Carmontelle 's hand, the humourist's 
portrait to a favourite collection of small water-colours. 
Carmontelle drew Sterne in profile at full length, as he stood, 
it would seem, on the terrace of the Palais Royal, with the 
city and the dome of the Invalides in the background. 




Laurence Sterne 
From a watercolour by Carmontelle at Chantilly 



PAEIS ,289 

Sterne turned his face towards the palace gardens, and 
bent slightly forward as he laid his right arm across the 
back of a chair, half closing the hand. His left hand he 
thrust into a pocket, and threw one leg gracefully across the 
other. His spare figure was dressed faultlessly for the 
occasion in complete black, with ruffled lace-sleeves and lace- 
cravat tied loose, just as the Count de Faineant had told him 
it ought to be. One misses the fine eyes of the front view 
chosen by Reynolds, but about the mouth are the same lines 
of mirth and good nature, with a trace of the full lips so 
conspicuous in the Ramsay portrait of Sterne's youth. It 
is the portrait of a man growing old in his labours and pleas- 
ures, taken, Sterne thought, "most expressively".* 

Sterne's original design of going south had been upset 
by the improvement of his health, and "the great civilities" 
of his new friends, from whom he found it hard to break 
away. So he decided to trail on in Paris until the end of 
May and then return home through Holland. But early in 
April came disturbing news from York. His daughter 
Lydia, who had suffered from asthma for several years, was 
declining so rapidly that her mother feared she could not 
survive another English winter. On receiving the alarming 
message, Sterne reconsidered his plans. For himself, his 
cheeks now rosy, he was ready to go back to his desk. And 
yet perhaps it would be better, after all, for him to summon 
his wife and daughter over to Paris and pass a winter with 
them at Toulouse, "free from coughs and colds". The 
faculty strongly advised this course for the complete restora- 
tion of his own health beyond likelihood of relapse. Sterne 
at once wrote to Lord Fauconberg and the Archbishop of 
York, explaining the situation, and thereby gaining their 
assent to an extension of his leave of absence from Coxwold. 
He was going, he told them, to the south of France, not so 
much on his own account as his daughter's, whom he was 
anxious to save if possible. But Sterne, as well as his 
physicians, had misread his condition. Near the middle of 
April, he went out to Versailles to solicit the necessary pass- 

* The portrait is now in the Due d 'Aumale 's collection at Chantilly. 
It has been reproduced by Messrs. Colnaghi and Co., London. 
19 



290 LAURENCE STERNE 

ports from the Duke of Choiseul. On his return, he was 
attacked with a fever, " which ended", Sterne says, "the 
worst way it could for me, in a defluxion poitrine, as the 
French physicians call it. It is generally fatal to weak lungs, 
so that I have lost in ten days all I have gain'd since I came 
here ; and, from a relaxation of my lungs, have lost my voice 
entirely, that 'twill be much if I ever quite recover it". 

As usual, Sterne was soon out of bed as if nothing serious 
had occurred. But the season was passing and there were 
fewer engagements. When the curtain falls upon his five 
months of dinners, he was, as first seen, among his country- 
men, doing honour to his Majesty George the Third. This 
was the last scene in the Shandy drama for the present. 
The story is told by the other chief performer, by Louis 
Dutens, the diplomatist, in his Memoirs. Dutens, though a 
Frenchman, had been at the Court of Turin for some time as 
charge d'affaires for the King of England. On the appoint- 
ment of George Pitt, first Baron Rivers, as Envoy and Min- 
ister to Turin, Dutens was ordered to Paris to take part in 
the preliminary negotiations for peace between France and 
England. He set out from Turin on the tenth of May, 
travelling in company with the Marquis of Tavistock, son 
of the Duke of Bedford — a young man only twenty-three 
years old, — and John Turberville Needham, the Roman Catho- 
lic scientist who had a hot tilt with Voltaire over the question 
of miracles. Needham was on the journey homewards, after 
making the grand tour as tutor to John Talbot Dillon, a 
young Irishman about Lord Tavistock's age, who will figure 
later as one of Sterne's close associates. Dillon, it may be 
said immediately for his further identification, spent most 
of his life in foreign travel and in writing about Spain and 
other lands he visited. Emperor Joseph the Second of 
Austria bestowed upon him the title of Free Baron of the 
Holy Roman Empire. On the anniversary of George the 
Third's birthday, the fourth of June, Lord Tavistock invited 
Sterne and a few other English gentlemen who were still in 
Paris to meet his Turin friends at dinner. Without formal 
introduction, it would appear, the guests sat down to table. 
What occurred I may leave to the pen of Dutens himself, a 



PARIS 291 

queer character, who had done queer things at the Court of 
the King of Sardinia, vague rumours of which had doubtless 
reached Sterne : 

"I sat", says Dutens,* "between Lord Berkeley, who was 
going to Turin, and the famous Sterne, author of Tristram 
Shandy, who was considered as the Rabelais of England. 
"We were very jovial during dinner; and drank, in the Eng- 
lish manner, the toasts of the day. The conversation turned 
upon Turin, which several of the company were on the point 
of visiting: upon which Mr. Sterne, addressing himself to 
me, asked me if I knew Mr. Dutens, naming me. I replied, 
'Yes, very intimately.' The whole company began to laugh; 
and Sterne, who did not suppose me so near him, imagined 
that this Mr. Dutens must be a very singular character, 
since the mention of the name alone excited merriment. 
'Is he not a rather strange fellow?' added he, immediately. 

'Yes', replied I, 'an original.' 'I thought so', continued 

he ; ' I have heard him spoken of : ' and then he began to draw 
a picture of me, the truth of which I pretended to acknow- 
ledge; while Sterne, seeing that the subject amused the com- 
pany, invented from his fertile imagination many stories, 
which he related in his way, to the great diversion of us all." 

"I was the first", Dutens goes on to say, "who withdrew; 
and I had scarcely left the house, when they told him who 
I was: they persuaded him that I had restrained myself at 
the time from respect to Lord Tavistock ; but that I was not 
to be offended with impunity, and that he might expect to 
see me on the next day, to demand satisfaction for the 
improper language which he had used concerning me. 
Indeed he thought he had carried his raillery too far, for he 
was a little merry: he therefore came the following morning 
to see me, and to beg pardon for anything that he might 
have said to offend me; excusing himself by that circum- 
stance, and by the great desire he had to amuse the company, 
who had appeared so merrily disposed from the moment he 
first mentioned my name. I stopped him short at once, by 
assuring him that I was as much amused at his mistake as 
any of the party; that he had said nothing which could 

* Memoirs of a Traveller, II, 5-8 (London, 1806). 



292 LAUEENCE STEENE 

offend me ; and that, if he had known the man he had spoken 
of as well as I did, he might have said much worse things 
of him. He was delighted with my answer, requested my 
friendship, and went away highly pleased with me."* 

* This merry jest was strangely employed by Thackeray to prove 
that Sterne was not a true gentleman, although he may be regarded as 
one by ' ' my Superfine friend ' '. It is perhaps worth while to quote the 
novelist's paragraph (afterwards suppressed), as an example of the way 
in which Sterne has been often misinterpreted. After retelling the 
story, Thackeray remarked: 

"Ah, dear Laurence! You are lucky in having such a true gentle- 
man as my friend to appreciate you! You see he was lying, but then 
he was amusing the whole company. When Laurence found they were 
amused, he told more lies. Your true gentlemen always do. Even to 
get the laugh of the company at a strange table, perhaps you audi 
would not tell lies: but then we are not true gentlemen. _ And see in 
what a true gentlemanlike way Laurence carries off the lies! A man 
who wasn't accustomed to lying might be a little disconcerted at meet- 
ing with a person to whose face he had been uttering abuse and false- 
hood. Not so Laurence. He goes to Dutens; * * * embraces him, and 
asks for his friendship! Heaven bless him! Who would not be 
honoured by the friendship of a true gentleman, who had just told lies 
about you to your face?" — Cornhill Magazine, II, 633. 



CHAPTER XIII 

JOURNEY TO TOULOUSE 
JULY AND AUGUST, 1762 

Amid the merriments of the English colony, Sterne was 
playing admirably the part of paterfamilias. His wife and 
daughter had come into York, as was customary, for the 
previous winter, where they were occupying a house in the 
Minster Yard, under the protection of Hall-Stevenson. "My 
family, my Lord", he wrote to the Earl of Fauconberg, "is 
a very small machine, but it has many wheels in it, and I am 
forced too often to turn them about — not as I would — but as 
I can." No sooner, however, had Sterne regained his emo- 
tional poise, after the first exciting weeks in Paris, than he 
got into touch with the complicated machine at home, and 
guided its movements as well as he could at long distance. 
He related in letters to Mrs. Sterne such incidents in his 
great reception as he thought would interest her most, and 
gave her instructions in the care and management of Lydia, 
who should be kept by all means to her French. As presents 
to his wife, he sent home two snuff-boxes, in charge of a 
friend, one filled with garnets and the other containing an 
etching of Carmontelle 's water-colour. When it was decided 
that Mrs. Sterne and Lydia should come over and go south 
with him, he posted off letter after letter, describing in 
minute detail all arrangements for the journey. As he 
stated it in one of the letters, "I have almost drain 'd my 
brains dry on the subject". 

It was not an easy thing for an English parson with only 
a moderate income to establish his household in another 
country; but Sterne took up the practical problem with the 
method and good sense that he had applied in earlier years 
to numerous parish questions. Toulouse was chosen for 
several reasons. Provisions he found, on enquiry, were cheap 

293 



294 LAUEENCE STEENE 

there; several English friends, including "old Hewitt' ' and 
his family, were to be there for the winter, and the town was 
recommended to him by the faculty. While his plans were 
forming, he was referred for practical help to an "Abbe 
Mackarty" — doubtless a member of the Irish MacCarthy 
Reagh family, then settled at Toulouse. The Abbe, who had 
previously rendered similar aid to Hall-Stevenson and the 
Skelton set, was commissioned to take a pleasant house for 
the Sternes, near or within the city, at his discretion. 

A house engaged and the cost of living reckoned up, 
Sterne next adjusted his affairs at home to the new arrange- 
ments. James Kilner, his curate at Coxwold, was recom- 
mended to the Archbishop of York for the priesthood. 
Richard Chapman, steward of Newburgh Priory, was to look 
after the finances of the parish in Sterne's interest. In like 
manner Stephen Croft was to represent Sterne at Sutton 
and Stillington, where important parish matters needed 
attention, for some of the land-owners wished to inclose 
Rascal Common. Sterne wrote back that he would not stand 
in the way of the project, provided he received his share. 
A bureau had to be broken open for Sterne 's deeds, and Croft 
was given a power of attorney to act for the vicar. The 
squire w'as also delegated to provide for the commissary's 
visitations of Pickering and Pocklington. All moneys re- 
ceived were to be sent up to London by Sterne's agents, to 
Selwin, banker and correspondent of Panchaud and Foley, 
in Rue St. Sauveur, Paris. In turn, the banking firm at 
Paris was to remit to Messrs. Brousse et Fils of Toulouse. 
Besides all this, Mrs. Sterne was enjoined to bring over at 
least three hundred pounds in her pocket, for that amount 
would be immediately necessary. There were still other 
little preparations incident to a long journey, to which 
Sterne did not fail to call her attention : 

"Bring your silver coffee-pot, 'twill serve both to give 
water, lemonade, and orjead — to say nothing of coffee and 
chocolate. * * * Do not say I forgot you, or whatever can 

be conducive to your ease of mind, in this journey 1 wish 

I was with you, to do these offices myself, and to strew roses 
on your way — but I shall have time and occasion to shew 



JOUENEY TO TOULOUSE 295 

you I am not wanting Now, my dears, once more pluck 

up your spirits — trust in God — in me — and in yourselves 
— with this, was you put to it, you would encounter all 

these difficulties ten times told Write instantly, and 

tell me you triumph over all fears; tell me Lydia is better, 

and a helpmate to you You say she grows like me let 

her shew me she does so in her contempt of small dangers, 
and fighting against the apprehensions of them, which is 
better still. * * * Give my love to Mr. Fothergill, and to 
those true friends which Envy has spared me — and for the 
rest, laissez passer. * * * Dear Bess, I have a thousand 

wishes, but have a hope for every one of them You shall 

chant the same jubilate, my dears, so God bless you. My 
duty to Lydia, which implies my love too. Adieu, believe 
me Your affectionate, L. Sterne." 

Owing to many delays, it was the twenty-first of June, or 
a day or two after, when Mrs. Sterne and Lydia set out from 
York for London, under the most precise directions from the 
head of the family. ' ' I would advise you ' ', he wrote to 
them, "to take three days in coming up, for fear of heating 

yourselves. See that they do not give you a bad vehicle, 

when a better is in the yard, but you will look sharp 

drink small Ehenish to keep you cool, (that is if you like it.) 
Live well, and deny yourselves nothing your hearts wish. 
So God in heaven prosper and go along with you. ' ' On 
arriving in London, they put up with their friends the 
Edmundsons, who showed them many "marks of kindness", 
to the satisfaction of Sterne. Into the scant week they 
stayed in town was crowded much business and shopping, if 
they executed the contents of letters that had been coming 
every post from Paris. Most important of all, Mrs. Sterne 
was to go with Mr. Edmundson to Becket 's and collect what 
might be due on the Shandys. Becket had sold 2824 copies, 
which should have yielded the author £300 or more. How 
far Sterne had already drawn on his publisher for expenses 
in Paris is not known ; but there was probably a comfortable 
sum still to his credit. Next, Mrs. Sterne and her adviser 
must, if possible, induce Becket to purchase the remainder 



296 LAURENCE STERNE 

of the edition, numbering in the whole 4000 sets, by the offer 
of "a handsome allowance for the chances and drawbacks" 
on his side. Should they succeed to this extent, then they 
might try him on the copyright, holding out as a bait the 
promise of the nay-say on the next instalment of Shandy. 
Becket gave Mrs. Sterne a bill addressed to his Paris cor- 
respondent in settlement of the account to date, but did not 
touch the bait set for the unsold copies and the copyright. 

After this business with Becket, Mrs. Sterne should make 
additions to her wardrobe. "If you consider", wrote her 

husband, "Lydia must have two slight negligees you will 

want a new gown or two as for painted linens, buy them 

in town, they will be more admired because English than 

French. Mrs. Hewit writes me word that I am mistaken 

about buying silk cheaper at Toulouse than Paris, that she 

advises you to buy what you want here where they are 

very beautiful and cheap, as well as blonds, gauzes, &c. 

these I say will all cost you sixty guineas — and you must 
have them — for in this country nothing must be spared 

for the back and if you dine on an onion, and lie in a 

garret seven stories high, you must not betray it in your 
cloaths, according to which you are well or ill look'd on." 

Then came numerous small purchases conducive to the 
peace of the household, which Sterne huddled together in 
his letters: 

"Do not forget the watch-chains -bring a couple for a 

gentleman's watch likewise; we shall lie under great obliga- 
tions to the Abbe M[aekarty] and must make him such a 
small acknowledgement; according to my way of nourishing, 

'twill be a present worth a kingdom to him. They have 

bad pins, and vile needles here bring for yourself, and 

some for presents as also a strong bottle-skrew, for what- 
ever Scrub we may hire as butler, coachman, &c, to uncork 
us our Frontiniac. * * * I had like to have forgot a most 
necessary thing, there are no copper tea-kettles to be had in 
France, and we shall find such a thing the most comfortable 

utensil in the house- buy a good strong one, which will 

hold two quarts — a dish of tea will be a comfort to us in 
our journey south 1 have a bronze tea-pot, which we will 



JOUKNEY TO TOULOUSE 297 

carry also — -as china cannot be brought over from Eng- 
land, we must make up a villainous party-coloured tea 
equipage, to regale ourselves, and our English friends, 
whilst we are at Toulouse." In the list were also knives and 
cookery-books, with three sets of Shandy and three sets of 
Sermons for presents to Parisian friends. And finally to 
the comfort of a wife who had the amiable habit of snuff- 
taking : l ' Give the Custom-House officers what I told you 

at Calais give more, if you have much Scotch snuff but 

as tobacco is good here, you had best bring a Scotch mill and 
make it yourself, that is, order your valet to manufacture it 

'twill keep him out of mischief." 

If Sterne's plans did not miscarry, a good-natured horse- 
trader, who had brought over a sister of Panchaud's, con- 
ducted Mrs. Sterne and Lydia to Dover, put them up at the 
Cross Keys, and saw them across the Channel on a cartel ship. 
At Calais they were to lodge at the Lyon d 'Argent, the 
master of which they must look out for, as he was "a Turk 
in grain". With the inn-keeper they would find a letter 
giving final directions, with an enclosure from "Mr. Cole- 
brooks, the minister of Swisserland's secretary", addressed 
to the custom-house officer. "You must be cautious", Mrs. 

Sterne was warned again, "about Scotch snuff take half 

a pound in your pocket, and make Lyd do the same." At 
this time it was well-nigh impossible for travellers to obtain 
conveyance from Calais to Paris, since all the chaises of 
France had been sent to the army to bring in the officers. 
By good luck, however, Sterne obtained a fine one from his 
friend Thomas Thornhill of London, who was returning 
from a continental tour. "You will be in raptures", wrote 
Sterne, "with your chariot. — Mr. E. a gentleman of for- 
tune, who is going to Italy, and has seen it, has offered me 

thirty guineas for my bargain. You will wonder all the 

way, how I am to find room in it for a third to ease you 

of this wonder, 'tis by what the coachmakers here call a 
cave, which is a second bottom added to that you set your 
feet upon, which lets the person (who sits over against you) 
down with his knees to your ancles, and by which you have 
all more room and what is more, less heat, because 



298 LAUEENCE STEENE 

his head does not intercept the fore-glass little or nothing 

Lyd and 1 will enjoy this by turns; sometimes I will 

take a bidet (a little post-horse) and scamper before 



at other times I shall sit in fresco upon the arm-chair without 

doors, and one way or other will do very well. 1 am under 

infinite obligations to Mr. Thornhill, for accommodating me 
thus, and so genteelly, for 'tis like making a present of it." 
The chaise was to be left at Calais with a written order for 
its delivery to Mrs. Sterne. "Send for your chaise", was 

the last caution, "into the court-yard, and see all is tight 

Buy a chain at Calais, strong enough not to be cut off, and 
let your portmanteau be tied on the fore part of your chaise 

for fear of a dog's trick so God bless you both, and 

remember me to my Lydia." 

Travelling toute doucement, owing to the heat, and 
refreshed by the tea they brought with them, Mrs. Sterne and 
Lydia arrived in Paris on Thursday the eighth of July. It 
had been for Sterne a long and anxious period of waiting, 
varied by some amusements. The summer had set in hot 
about the first of May, and the heat increased every day, 
until Paris became "as hot as Nebuchadnezzar's oven". 
Sterne nevertheless undertook to go about as if he were in 
cool Yorkshire. One good story of his excursions he himself 
told at the expense of his facility with French. True, he 
had quickly attuned his ear to understanding the language, 
and he learned to speak it easily, but only after an English- 
man's fashion, that is, with a disregard of the idioms and 
the auxiliary verbs. "I have had a droll adventure here", 
as Sterne described it for the entertainment of Lady D- , 



' ' in which my Latin was of some service to me 1 had 

hired a chaise and a horse to go about seven miles into the 
country, but, Shandean like, did not take notice that the 

horse was almost dead when I took him Before I got 

halfway, the poor animal dropp'd down dead so I was 

forced to appear before the Police, and began to tell my 
story in French, which was, that the poor beast had to do 
with a worse beast than himself, namely his master, who had 
driven him all the day before (Jehulike) and that he had 
neither had corn, or hay, therefore I was not to pay for the 



JOUKNEY TO TOULOUSE 299 

horse but I might as well have whistled, as have spoke 

French, and I believe my Latin was eqnal to my uncle 
Toby's Lilabulero — being not understood because of it's 
purity, but by dint of words I forced my judge to do me 

justice no common thing by the way in France." 

His imprudence, together with attention to his wife's 
journey and the approaching settlement at Toulouse, brought 
on, towards the end of June, another severe hemorrhage. 
"It happen 'd in the night", he wrote to Hall-Stevenson, 
"and I bled the bed full, and finding in the morning I was 
likely to bleed to death, I sent immediately for a surgeon to 

bleed me at both arms this saved me, and with lying 

speechless three days, I recovered upon my back in bed; the 
breach healed, and in a week after I got out." Sterne at 
once gave up a design of taking his wife and daughter to 
Spa through the hot summer, convinced now that he must 
hasten to Toulouse for rest and quiet. They remained in 
Paris for a week or ten days, time enough for sight-seeing 
and necessary purchases of silks, blonds, and gauzes. As a 
present to Mrs. Edmundson, they sent over to London by 
"Mr. Stanhope, the Consul of Algiers (I mean his lady)" 
an India taffety, in memory of recent hospitality and kind- 
ness. Lydia, said her father, did nothing at first but sit by 
the window of their apartments and "complain of the tor- 
ment of being frizzled". He expressed the wish that she 
might ever remain thus the "child of nature", for he hated 
the "children of art". The day before leaving Paris, the 
Sternes received a pleasant visit from Lawson Trotter, an 
uncle of Hall-Stevenson and the master of Skelton before 
the year forty-five. The old Jacobite, who feared to return 
to England, came on business wherein Sterne acted as agent 
for Hall- Stevenson. He stayed to dinner, after which Sterne 
showed him a copy of the Crazy Tales just out; and was 
"made happy beyond expression" by the book and "more 
so with its frontispiece", the humorous sketch of Skelton 
Castle. But for Sterne himself, the visit awakened home- 
sickness for Yorkshire. " 'Tis now", he wrote a few weeks 
afterwards to Hall-Stevenson, "I wish all warmer climates, 
countries, and everything else, at , that separates me 



300 LAURENCE STERNE 

from our paternal seat ce sera la ou reposera ma cendre — 

et ce sera la ou mon cousin viendra repandre les pleurs dues 
a notre amitie." 

On Monday the nineteenth of July, as near as can be 
made out, the Sternes began the long and expensive journey 
to Toulouse by way of Lyons, Avignon, and Montpellier, 
travelling by post most of the way, as was Sterne's custom. 
Their chaise, which was narrow and cramped, despite the 
cave for Lydia's feet, they piled with baggage, before and 
aft, mountains high. For such a load were necessary at least 
four horses with two postillions, which would be exchanged 
for fresh ones at the successive stages. As the posts were 
then farmed out by the king, the exactions were most 
oppressive, especially at royal posts like Lyons, where one paid 
double. It is certain that the three hundred pounds which 
Mrs. Sterne brought over in her pocket shrunk more than 
half by the time the party arrived in Toulouse. The serious 
details of the journey Sterne never cared to recall, but the 
humorous side of it he touched upon in a letter or two, and 
made it the main subject of the next volume of Tristram 
Shandy. By abating his extravagances here and there, per- 
haps we may tell the story somewhat as it was, though the 
narrative will be scant and never quite trustworthy. 

Sterne chose the longest route to Toulouse with the mani- 
fest intent of sight-seeing. To this end he took along, as any 
one may see, the Nouveau Voyage en France by Piganiol de 
la Force, the Baedeker of the period, who mapped out all 
the post roads and described all the things which a traveller 
should observe by the way and at the halting places. In the 
pocket of the chaise were placed also note-books or loose 
sheets, on which Sterne was to record his own impressions. 
But owing to the extreme heat, and the many annoyances at 
the different posts, Sterne implies that he paid little atten- 
tion to the guide-book's list of videnda. None of the first 
places on the route — Fontainebleau, Sens, and Joigny — in- 
terested him much, until he reached Auxerre, about which he 
could "go on forever ' ' ; though he had in fact little to say of 
the town, where he may have strolled about for a day or 
two. On a visit to the ruined Abbey of St. Germain, the 



JOUENEY TO TOULOUSE 301 

sacristan pointed out the tomb of St. Maxima, in life "one 
of the fairest and most beautiful ladies, either of Italy or 
France", who four centuries ago came to Auxerre to touch 
the bones of St. Germain, and, after lying in her coffin two 
hundred years or more, was enrolled among the saints. 
Sterne thought that her rise, like the rest of the army of 
martyrs, was ' ' a desperate slow one ' ' ; and asked, as he 
walked on to the next tomb, ' ' Who the duce has got lain down 
here, besides her?" The sacristan, starting to reply that it 
was St. Optat, a bishop — was cut short by his visitor, who 
remarked that the bones of St. Optat were most fortunate 
in their resting place, as Mr. Shandy could have foretold 
from his name, the most auspicious that a bishop might bear. 
This may have been a sly hit at the Archbishop of York, who 
still enjoyed the old option of appointing a favourite to a 
benefice in the diocese of a newly consecrated bishop. So 
ended Auxerre. 

All the way from Paris there had been more than the 
usual stops and hindrances from broken ropes, slipping 
knots, and loosened staples. Still the family had travelled 
thus far with a degree of comfort; but as they proceeded 
farther south, vexations were turned to downright suffering. 
Their conveyance proved hopelessly inadequate; the inns 
grew more and more intolerable; the roads were dusty; and 
the southern sun beat upon them with deadly rays. After 
it was all over, Sterne wrote to his friend Foley the banker, 
with special reference to the journey from this point south- 
wards: "I never saw a cloud from Paris to Nismes half as 

broad as a twenty-four sols piece. Good God! we were 

toasted, roasted, grill'd, stew'd and carbonaded on one side 

or other all the way and being all done enough (assez 

cuits) in the day, we were ate up at night by bugs, and other 
unswept out vermin, the legal inhabitants (if length of pos- 
session gives right) of every inn we lay at." On one of 
these fierce days, just as Lyons was in sight, the chaise over- 
turned and broke "into a thousand pieces". Chaise and 
baggage were thrown "higgledy-piggledy" into a cart, behind 
which the pilgrims walked demurely into the city. 

As they were passing through the streets to the inn of 



302 LAURENCE STERNE 

Monsieur Le Blanc, in the western quarter of the town, a 
pert chaise-vamper stepped nimbly up to Sterne and asked 
if he would have his chaise refitted. "No, no, said I, shak- 
ing my head sideways Would Monsieur chuse to sell it? 

rejoin 'd the undertaker With all my soul, said I the 

iron work is worth forty livres — and the glasses worth 
forty more — and the leather you may take to live on." 
Thornhill's beautiful chariot, which cost Sterne ten guineas, 
accordingly went for four louis d'ors. To make good the 
loss as well as to avoid further misfortunes on the road, 
Sterne decided to take the boat to Avignon, which left the 
next day at noon. By changing to this mode of travel, his 
purse would be the better, as he reckoned it, by four hundred 
livres. The next morning he was up early, breakfasting on 
"milk-coffee", and ready to start out by eight o'clock to see 
those curiosities of Lyons which Piganiol de la Force made 
so much of. Whereupon a series of cross-accidents inter- 
vened to bring all to naught. As he was about to pass from 
the basse cour of his inn to the street, he was met at the gate 
by an ass munching the stem of an artichoke. He had to 
stop and watch Old Honesty drop and pick up the bitter 
morsel half a dozen times, and then to try, out of pleasantry, 
the effect of a macaroon upon him in place of the artichoke. 
So much of the famous communion with the ass at Lyons 
may possibly be fact. Once outside the gate, Sterne was 
stopped by a commissary from the post-office "with a rescript 
in his hand for the payment of some six livres odd sous, 
* * # f or £h e nex t p 0S £ f rom hence to St. Fons ' ' in the route 
to Avignon. Puzzled at the demand, Sterne explained to the 
commissary that he did not intend to take post, but was 
going by water down the Ehone. "C'est tout egaV\ replied 
the commissary, and handed Monsieur the rescript to read for 
himself. From the curious document, Sterne learned why 
Monsieur La Popeliniere, the rich farmer-general, was able 
to keep open house and a band of musicians for the enter- 
tainment of all Paris; more specifically he learned, by the 
help of the officer, "that if you set out with an intention of 
running post from Paris to Avignion, &c, you shall not 
change that intention or mode of travelling, without first 



JOUENEY TO TOULOUSE 303 

satisfying the fermiers for two posts further than the place 
you repent at". After a vigorous protest, Sterne paid the 
six livres in order that the revenues of the kingdom might 
not fall short through the fickleness of an English gentleman. 
Determined, however, to make an immediate record of 
the imposition, Sterne put his hand into his coat-pocket for 
the note-book he had brought with him ; but, to his consterna- 
tion, the note-book, containing all his clever observations, was 
gone— lost or stolen. As soon as his head cleared up a little, 
it occurred to him that he had left his notes in the pocket of 
his chaise, and in selling the vehicle, had sold his notes along 
with it. Nothing to do then but hasten off to the chaise- 
vamper, where they were discovered and returned to him. 
As Sterne pointed the story for his comic history, the sheets 
had been torn up the night before by the wife of the chaise- 
maker, and used as papillotes in frizzling her hair. She 
untwisted the papers from her curls and placed them gravely 
one by one in his hat. The morning was now so far advanced 
that only an hour was left for seeing the objects for which 
Lyons was renowned. With Francois, his valet de place, he 
ran over to the Cathedral of St. Jean for just a look at the 
mechanism of the wonderful clock set up in the choir by 
Lippius of Bale. He got no farther than the west door of 
the cathedral, where a minor canon told him that the "great 
clock was all out of joints and had not gone for some years ' ' ; 
so he hurried away to the Jesuits' library, where reposed, 
among the treasures, a general history of China in thirty 
volumes, all in the Chinese language and Chinese characters. 
That curiosity he was destined not to peruse, for the library 
was closed, all the Jesuits being ill, Sterne opined, of a colic. 
This was Sterne's way of saying that the Jesuits were out of 
favour with the ministry. Nothing now remained on his 
schedule of videnda except the Tomb of the two Lovers, out- 
side the gate, in the Faubourg de Vaise. The origin of that 
tomb or little temple and what it meant, Sterne knew from 
his guide-book, had been for a long time a question in dispute 
among the savants. Adopting the sentimental explanation, 
Sterne felt sure that it was a monument erected to the con- 
stancy of Amandus and Amanda, who, after long separation 



304 LAUEENCE STEENE 

and captivity, met at Lyons, and, flying into each other's 
arms, dropped down dead for joy. That spot of all others in 
the world must not be missed. The site of the tomb was 
easily found, but no monument was visible, for it had been 
razed to the ground many years before, as was indeed the 
fact, by the consulat de Lyon. 

Sterne recrossed the city barely in time for the noon boat, 
aboard which his family and baggage awaited him. He is 
strangely reticent on the voyage down the Rhone, except to 
intimate that he was pleased with the rush of the stream 
while his boat shot merrily along between "banks advancing 
and returning", and by the foot of the vine-covered Hermit- 
age and C6te-R6tie. On the evening he landed at Avignon, 
the wind was blowing violently, though it had not reached 
the fury of the mistral; and Sterne lost his hat. He wished 
to enquire of some learned man about the proverb that 
"Avignon is more subject to high winds than any town in all 
France", but he could find no one to converse with except 
his landlord, for everybody else was either duke, marquis, or 
count. To escape for the future the discomforts of the jour- 
ney from Paris to Lyons, he sent his wife and daughter on 
by post, while he engaged for himself a mule and servant 
with horse. As he was setting out from his inn, a ludicrous 
adventure befell him much like one that happened to Smollett 
at Joigny a year later. The irritable novelist, sitting in his 
chaise before the post-office, waiting for a change of horses, 
was politely addressed by a man who stepped up to the 
chaise-window. Supposing the stranger to be the inn-keeper 
of the place, Smollett turned to him savagely and ordered 
him to help a servant in adjusting the displaced trunks. A 
few minutes later he learned to his chagrin that he had 
insulted a nobleman. Under similar circumstances Yorick's 
conduct was more urbane: 

"Prithee, friend, said I, take hold of my mule for a 

moment for I wanted to pull off one of my jack-boots, 

which hurt my heel the man was standing quite idle at 

the door of the inn, and as I had taken it into my head, he 
was someway concerned about the house or stable, I put the 
bridle into his hand so begun with the boot: when I 



JOURNEY TO TOULOUSE 305 

had finished the affair, I turned about to take the mule from 
the man, and thank him 



-But Monsieur le Marquis had walked in- 



On the morning of the start, Sterne was in buoyant mood, 
in anticipation of the rare journey through the rich plain 
of Languedoc to the banks of the Garonne. He was also in 
excellent health. "I had left Death", he said playfully, 
"the Lord knows — and He only — how far behind me. * * * 
Still he pursued but like one who pursued his prey with- 
out hope as he lagg'd, every step he lost, soften 'd his 

looks." One may fancy the scene as the travellers crossed 
the bridge at Avignon. Ahead was the chaise with Mrs. 
Sterne and Lydia, followed by the owner of the outfit strid- 
ing along on foot, with a gun thrown across his shoulder to 
frighten off robbers; next came Sterne riding a mule; and 
a servant on horseback brought up the rear, bearing his 
master's luggage, in case the company should get separated 
at night. If Sterne tells the truth, he loitered behind 
terribly, stopping and talking to every one on the way — 
peasants at their work, strolling beggars, pilgrims, fiddlers, 
and friars. "I was always in company, and with great 
variety too; * * * I am confident we could have passed 
through Pali-Mall or St. James's-Street for a month together, 
with fewer adventures and seen less of human nature." 

With Sterne time counted for nothing. Meeting a couple 
of Franciscans, who were more straitened for it than himself, 
he even walked back with them half a mile in order to 
complete an interesting conversation. He watched a drum- 
maker, who was making drums for the fairs of Beaucaire and 
Tarascon, enquiring of him the principles that underlay the 
instruments, not because he wished to know them, but because 
he wished to see the working of a peasant's mind in an 
attempt to explain them. Of a gossip he bought a hand- 
basket of Provence figs for five sous. Though a very small 
trade, it gave him another and finer opportunity to study the 
peasant in a case of abstract reasoning; for, on lifting the 
vine-leaves, he discovered beneath the figs two dozen of eggs, 
which the old woman had forgotten. Thereupon arose a nice 
question of property: To whom belonged the eggs? It 

20 



306 LAURENCE STEENE 

might be said that the eggs were Sterne 's, inasmuch as he had 
paid for the space they occupied. Against this position it 
might be said with equal justice that he had not purchased 
eggs, and so they could not be his. Sterne was quite willing 
to resign all claim to the eggs; but then arose a still nicer 
question : To whom belonged the basket ? The question 
puzzled alike the philosopher and the peasant ; for without the 
basket to carry them in, neither the eggs nor the figs had 
any value. 

Sauntering along in this delightful fashion, Sterne made 
a spurt somewhere between Avignon and Beaucaire, and 
caught up with the chaise in time to share in the second 
serious mishap since leaving Paris. It was towards the end 
of July, the gala week at the fair of Beaucaire. "Can you 
conceive", he wrote in his amusing way to Foley, "a worse 
accident than that in such a journey, in the hottest day and 
hour of it, four miles from either tree or shrub which could 
cast a shade of the size of one of Eve's fig leaves — that we 
should break a hind wheel into ten thousand pieces, and be 
obliged in consequence to sit five hours on a gravelly road, 

without one drop of water, or possibility of getting any 

To mend the matter, my two postillions were two dough- 
hearted fools, and fell a crying. Nothing was to be done ! 

By heaven, quoth I, pulling off my coat and waistcoat, some- 
thing shall be done, for I'll thrash you both within an inch 

of your lives and then make you take each of you a horse, 

and ride like two devils to the next post for a cart to carry 

my baggage, and a wheel to carry ourselves Our luggage 

weighed ten quintals 'twas the fair of Baucaire all 

the world was going, or returning we were ask'd by every 

soul who pass'd by us, if we were going to the fair of 

Baucaire no wonder, quoth I, we have goods enough! 

vous avez raison, mes amis." 

The next post, whither the postillions were sent for cart 
and chaise, was indeed Beaucaire. Thence the unfortunate 
travellers proceeded to Nimes and Lunel, where Sterne closed 
his narrative in the exquisite idyl of Nannette and the vil- 
lage dance which he took part in at the end of a sultry day. 



JOUBNEY TO TOULOUSE 307 

Under the inspiration of the roundelay which he heard that 
evening 

"Viva la joia! 

"Fidon la tristessa!" 

he danced all the way, he would have us understand, from 
Lunel to Montpellier, "where there is the best Muscatto wine 
in all France" — and thence on through Narbonne and Car- 
cassonne to his habitation at Toulouse. 



CHAPTER XIV 

A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
AUGUST 1762r— MAY 1764 

The ancient capital of Languedoc stretches along the 
right bank of the Garonne, crossed by the noble Pont-Neuf. 
The centre of the town was then, as it is now, the Place du 
Capitole, the seat of the municipal government. Near-by were 
the University founded by Pope Gregory the Ninth, and the 
Museum of Fine Arts, with the academies of science and belles- 
lettres. From the Capitole, streets ran off: in all directions, 
terminating at the north in the beautiful church of St. Sernin, 
the pride of Toulouse, and at the south in the Parliament 
buildings, stately mansions, and extensive gardens and sub- 
urbs. To the southwest was the Cathedral of St. Etienne, over 
which presided Lomenie de Brienne, to become Minister of 
Finance under Louis the Sixteenth. On his arrival early in 
the second week of August, 1762, Sterne was pleased with the 
town beyond anticipation. The Abbe Mackarty had rented 
for him a large and well-furnished house from Monsieur Slig- 
niac, apparently on the outer edge of the southern quarter, 
and had attended to all those little details necessary to a 
stranger's comfort. As soon as he had unpacked and looked 
about him, Sterne wrote to Hall-Stevenson on the twelfth of 
August . 

''Here I am in my own house, quite settled by 
M[ackarty]'s aid, and good-natured offices, for which I owe 
him more than I can express or know how to pay at present. 

'Tis in the prettiest situation in Toulouse, with near 

two acres of garden. * * * I have got a good cook my 

wife a decent femme de chambre, and a good-looking laquais. 

The Abbe has planned our expences, and set us in such 

a train, we cannot easily go wrong tho' by the bye, the 

d 1 is seldom found sleeping under a hedge.' ' 

308 



A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 309 

And two days later he gave Foley other details: 

' ' Well ! here we are after all, my dear friend and most 

deliciously placed at the extremity of the town, in an excel- 
lent house well furnish 'd and elegant beyond anything I 

look'd for 'Tis built in the form of a hotel, with a pretty 

court towards the town and behind, the best gardens in 

Toulouse, laid out in serpentine walks, and so large that 
the company in our quarter usually come to walk there in the 

evenings, for which they have my consent 'the more the 

merrier/ The house consists of a good salle a manger 

above stairs joining to the very great salle a compagnie as 
large as the Baron d'Holbach's; three handsome bed-cham- 
bers with dressing rooms to them below stairs two very 

good rooms for myself, one to study in, the other to see com- 
pany. 1 have moreover cellars round the court, and all 

other offices Of the same landlord I have bargained to have 

the use of a country-house which he has two miles out of 
town, so that myself and all my family have nothing more to 
do than take our hats and remove from the one to the other. 

My landlord is moreover to keep the gardens in order 

and what do you think I am to pay for all this?- neither 
more or less than thirty pounds a year." 

Alternating between his hotel and country-house, Sterne 
entered upon the life of a French gentleman, at the small 
expense, as his wife estimated, of two hundred and fifty 
pounds a year. Connected with his country-house was "a 
handsome pavillion' , , which he renamed Pringello's Pavillion 
in honour of Don Pringello, the fanciful title of an architect 
whom Hall-Stevenson had recently celebrated in Crazy Tales, 
as one of the Demoniacs. Within easy distance was similarly 
established the eccentric William Hewitt whom Sterne had 
met at Skelton and Scarborough. The two families were 
constantly passing to and fro for dinner or supper. Between 
meals Sterne took to drinking ass's milk in the morning and 
cow r s milk in the evening, a diet which was recommended to 
him in this way by the physicians. In the heat of summer 
there was little society at Toulouse, for the French gentlemen 
were away in the country, and the usual English colony was 
scattered at various resorts and in travel. With nothing thus 



310 LAURENCE STERNE 

to distract him, Sterne sat down in his study or his pavillion 
to Tristram Shandy, in the hope that another instalment 
might be completed for the next London season. He did not 
begin, as is quite evident, with the seventh volume, which 
describes the tour through France from Calais. Notes he had 
made for the journey, but it had not occurred to him that 
his travels could be grafted into Tristram Shandy. They 
were to form, as first designed, a work separate and distinct. 
His imagination was away in Shandy Hall and Yorkshire, 
with my uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, and the widow Wad- 
man, on a day in mid- August when he unscrewed his inkhorn 
under the "genial sun" of Toulouse, in the "clear climate of 
fantasy and perspiration ' \ Hall-Stevenson's Crazy Tales 
lay before him. Ten times a day he looked at the curious 
frontispiece of Skelton Castle; and with his face turned 
towards its turret, so near as the direction could be made out, 
he plunged into my uncle Toby's amours, comprising the 
eighth book of Tristram Shandy. 

He advanced only a short distance, hardly beyond the 
opening "crazy" chapters, containing a mad address to his 
readers in imitation of Rabelais, and a claim that his method 
of composition was "the most religious", if not the best in 

the world; "for I begin with writing the first sentence ■ 

and trusting to Almighty God for the second". While in 
this exultant mood, he "fell ill of an epidemic vile fever, 
which killed hundreds" about him. For six weeks he lay 
between life and death, attended by the local physicians, 
whom he declared "the errantest charletans in Europe". 
"I withdrew", he wrote to Hall-Stevenson in October, "what 
was left of me out of their hands, and recommended my 

affairs entirely to Dame Nature She (dear goddess) has 

saved me in fifty different pinching bouts, and I begin to 
have a kind of enthusiasm now in her favour, and in my own, 
That one or two more escapes will make me believe I shall 
leave you all at last by translation, and not by fair death." 

Sterne soon became as "stout and foolish" as ever, 
and resumed my uncle Toby's amours, while the Abbe 
Mackarty was out vintaging, and Lydia was "hard at it with 
music, dancing, and French speaking". As he sat at his table 



A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 311 

with a bottle of Frontiniac and glass at his side for a pledge 
to Hall-Stevenson, he thought that he had as good reason for 
being contented as the rest of his household. But Toulouse 
somehow, he could not quite explain it, was no longer to his 
taste. Had it not run counter to one of his hypotheses, he 
would have laid his weariness to the climate, for the hot sum- 
mer was being followed by a bitter cold autumn, which 
obliged him and his family "to sit with whole pagells of wood 
lighted up to our noses". In searching for a cause of his 
ennui, he finally attributed it to "the eternal platitude of 
the French character". Everybody was civil to him, but 
civility with no variety in it wearied and ' l boddered ' ' him to 
death. To put him into spirits once more, he longed for a 
visit from Tollot — who was again in Paris with Sir Charles 
Danvers, — in order that he might die, not of ennui, but of 
laughter. 

On the approach of winter, Sterne's gaiety returned with- 
out the aid of Sir Charles. French society doubtless improved 
as soon as families of rank left their chateaux and came in for 
the season and the local parliament. The Comtesse de Fumel 
and Monsieur Bonrepos received on several days every week ; 
and the Baron d'Orbessan, President of the assembly, kept 
open house to which all were welcome, whether French or 
foreigners.* Of these people, Sterne mentions only Dr. 
Jamme, a lawyer and man of letters ; but he must have been 
an habitue of all the more fashionable salons, as were Tollot 
and Hall-Stevenson when they visited Toulouse. They par- 
ticularly liked the Baron d'Orbessan, who was himself some- 
thing of a Demoniac. Many English travellers, who had been 
running about Europe, fixed upon Toulouse for the whole or 
a part of the winter. There was a happy society of them 
distributed about in lodgings, and gyrating around the hotels 
of the Sternes and the Hewitts. Among them, as they came 

and went through the winter, was a shadowy Mrs. M 

(Meadows, perhaps), with whom the Sternes sometimes dined; 
and a Mr. Woodhouse, "a most amiable worthy man", who 
stopped on his way to Italy, and whom Sterne took into his 

* W. Durrant Cooper, Seven Letters written by Sterne and his 
Friends, 6 (London, 1844). 



312 LAUEENCE STEENE 

own house. Every night they were all together at one place 
or another, " fiddling, laughing and singing, and cracking 
jokes". Early in December they all went to Hewitt's, "liv- 
ing together like brothers and sisters", and practising a play 
for the Christmas holidays, a diversion which had been sug- 
gested by Sterne as a soulagement. Towards the middle oi 
the month, as luck would have it, a company of English 
strollers arrived in Toulouse to act comedies, if an audience 
could be found. On Sterne's initiative, the two groups of 
amateurs united forces and shifted their scene of action over 
to his great salle a compagnie. After a fortnight in mak- 
ing costumes and in learning their parts, they presented there 
Mrs. Centlivre's Busy Body, with a grand orchestra impro- 
vised for the occasion. The next week they played Vanbrugh 
and Cibber's Journey to London, which Sterne, if he carried 
out his design, rewrote in part, turning it into A Journey to 
Toulouse. It is all very pretty to see Yorick in the role of 
playwright and stage-manager and possibly actor. 

The rest of the winter passed in interchange of visits ; and 
when the English colony began to break up in the spring, the 
Sternes all went to the Hewitts' country home for a week or 
fortnight. But we have no further festivities to relate, for 
Yorick was becoming depressed again. His purse was empty. 
Since settling with Mrs. Sterne, Becket had sold up to April, 
1763, only 182 copies of the last Shandys, and after that the 
sale came to a stand-still. "Ten cart-loads" of the volumes, 
Sterne said, still remained on their hands. That estimate was 
an exaggeration for 991 sets, enough, none the less, to disap- 
point him of a hundred pounds which he had expected at this 
time. So Sterne had to depend upon remittances out of York- 
shire, which were obviously inadequate for his mode of life. 
He was spending more than twice the clear income from his rents 
and parishes. By December he was reduced to "half a dozen 
guineas"; and in March he had only "five Louis to vapour 
with in this land of coxcombs". Foley, his banker, though 
very kind and considerate, naturally hesitated to advance the 
small sums which Sterne succeeded, however, in coaxing from 
him month after month. To poverty of purse was added 
poverty of spirit. During the winter, Sterne worked inter- 



A GENTLEMAN OF FEANCE 313 

mittently at Tristram, and revised more of his old sermons, 
perhaps writing new ones, with a view to publication; but his 
progress had been slow. April came and nothing was ready 
for the press ; nothing could be sent over to Becket for further 
revenue. 

Behind this double bankruptcy, financial and intellectual, 
which threatened Sterne, lay the wretched state of his health. 
Toulouse, ill-drained and subject to cold and damp winds in 
winter, had not agreed with him at all. True, there were 
days extending into weeks when he felt well, and imagined 
that the dread disease had been arrested, for there were as 
yet no returns of the hemorrhages of last summer. In these 
periods he went on with his literary work, and wrote "long 
nonsensical" letters to Hall-Stevenson, as if completely rein- 
stated in health and spirits ; but such was really not the case. 
Over against the joyous letters to the master of Skelton, 
should be set one to Archbishop Drummond in May, 1763, 
dismal in its forebodings and yet flashing with humour : 

"I have been fixed here with my family these ten months, 
and by God's blessing it has answered all I wished for, with 
regard to my daughter; I cannot say so much for myself, 
having since the first day of my arrival here been in a con- 
tinual warfare with agues, fevers, and physicians the first 

brought my blood to so poor a state, that the physicians found 
it necessary to enrich it with strong bouillons, and strong 
bouillons and soups a sante threw me into fevers, and fevers 

brought on loss of blood, and loss of blood agues so that 

as war begets poverty, poverty peace, etc. etc. has this 

miserable constitution made all its revolutions; how many 
more it may sustain, before its last and great one, God knows 

like the rest of my species, I shall fence it off as long as 

I can. I am advised now to try the virtues of the waters of 
Banyars, and shall encamp like a patriarch with my whole 
household upon the side of the Pyreneans this summer and 
winter at Nice; from whence in spring I shall return home, 
never, I fear, to be of service, at least as a preacher. I have 
preached too much, my Lord, already ; and was my age to be 
computed either by the number of sermons I have preached, 
or the infirmities they have brought upon me, I might be 



314 LAUEENCE STEENE 

truly said to have the claim of a Miles emeritus, and was there 
a Hotel des Invalides for the reception of snch established 
upon any salutary plain betwixt here and Arabia Felix, I 

would beg your Grace's interest to help me into it as it is, 

I rest fully assured in my heart of your Grace's indulgence 
to me in my endeavours to add a few quiet years to this 

fragment of my life and with my wishes for a long and 

happy one to your Grace, I am, from the truest veneration of 
your character, — Your most dutiful servant, L. Sterne.' ' 

The cause to which Sterne assigned his physical collapse 
cannot be taken at full value, though he had indeed innu- 
merable sermons to his credit. He might surely have preached 
on for another decade, but for Tristram Shandy and the 
indiscretions that followed in its wake. His letter, for what 
it said and for what it left unsaid, was most admirable as a 
request that he be released from all further parish duties. 
As he told his archbishop, he was going to Bagneres-de-Bigorre 
at the foot of the French Pyrenees to try the waters and a 
higher altitude. There was also another motive for the jour- 
ney. Tristram Shandy could not continue much further on 
the lines it had been running. It had been Sterne's first 
design, according to John Croft, to travel Mr. Tristram 
Shandy over Europe, making under this disguise remarks and 
strictures on the different peoples and governments, and clos- 
ing with an eulogium on England and her superior constitu- 
tion. Sterne's mind now began to revert to the original 
design as modified by a sojourn abroad. From politics, his 
interest had shifted to men and manners, of which he would 
give a comic rendering. At Bagneres, he expected "much 
amusement from the concourse of adventurers from all cor- 
ners of the earth"; and after exhausting Bagneres, it was his 
plan to cross the Pyrenees and spend a week in Spain, where 
he could collect in that time enough material "for a fertile 
brain to write a volume upon ' '. At the end of the spa season 
in September, he was to return and winter somewhere in 
southern France or in Italy, perhaps at Nice or at Florence, 
almost anywhere except at Toulouse. 

But the financial problem stared him in the face. To- 
wards the end of March, he received from England a draft 



A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 315 

for £130, which he turned over to his Paris banker. At best, 
this remittance satisfied current debts and carried him through 
the spring at Toulouse. Eager to set out on his journey, he 
wrote to Foley on April 29, asking for a fortnight's credit 
and explaining his method of payment. His agent at York — 
Chapman, no doubt, — was to send up to London "a bill for 
four score guineas ' ', with orders that it be paid into the hands 
of Foley's correspondent; and in the same way £20, pre- 
sumably from Becket on the Shandy s, was to be placed at his 
London account. All this would take time. "Therefore", 
said the request to the banker, "be so good as to give me 
credit for the money for a few posts or so, and send me either 
a rescription for the money, or a draught for it." Three 
weeks passed with no reply; and then, on May 21, Sterne 
sent a sharp note to Foley: 

"It is some disappointment to me that you have taken no 
notice of my letter, especially as I told you we waited for the 
money before we set out for Bagnieres and so little dis- 
trust had I that such a civility would be refused me, that we 
have actually had all our things pack'd up these eight days, in 

hourly expectation of receiving a letter. Perhaps my good 

friend has waited till he heard the money was paid in London 

— but you might have trusted to my honour that all the 

cash in your iron box (and all the bankers in Europe put 
together) could not have tempted me to say the thing that is 
not. * * * Mr. R[ay] of Montpellier, tho' I know him not, 
yet knows enough of me to have given me credit for a fort- 
night for ten times the sum. * * * After all, I heartily forgive 
you — for you have done me a signal service in mortifying 
me, and * * * I am determined to grow rich upon it. Adieu, 
and God send you wealth and happiness." 

To this letter, Foley duly responded with an enclosure for 
eighty or a hundred pounds. The real cause of the previous 
delay, the banker averred, was no distrust of Sterne, but 
merely distraction "with a multitude of business". Sterne 
accepted good-naturedly the excuse, and in turn apologised 
for his testy temper, saying that his grievance was mostly 
imaginary, as he had in his pocket Mr. Ray's letter of credit 
for £200, which he could use on a pinch. Three days after 



316 LAURENCE STERNE 

receiving Foley's remittance — on June 12, — the Sternes took 
chaise for Bagneres, in company with Mrs. M[eadows], who 
was going to another resort in the Pyrenees. The visit to 
Bagneres, so far as we have any record of it, is almost an 
intellectual blank in Sterne's life. Only one of his published 
letters bears the superscription of that place; and that is 
merely a request to Becket, dated July 15, 1763, to send him 
a bill on Foley for whatever Shandys may have been sold. 
The pleasures of Bagneres, he said, however, the next year, 
were not so "exalted" as those of Scarborough in the society 
of "Lord Granby and Co." The clue to his disappointment 
is given in an unpublished letter from Montpellier later in the 
year to a Mr. Mills, merchant in Philpot Lane, London. 
From the moment he left Toulouse, Sterne never had a 
moment's respite from ill-health, and subsequently the "thin 
Pyranean air brought on continual breeches of vessels" in his 
lungs. 

The journey into Spain was obviously abandoned, though 
we have no positive statement either way. His condition in 
nowise improved, Sterne left Bagneres with his family as 
early as the first of September — two weeks before the time 
set for departure — and began a course of travels through 
southern France in search of a comfortable place to camp in 
for the next winter. There were times when he "risked", 
according to the letter to Mills, "being taken up for a spy", 
so suspicious was the aspect he bore in the character of a 
wanderer, ' ' now prying here, now there ' ', as Pope would say. 
The patriarch first retraced his steps to Toulouse, where he 
was made happy by an order from Foley upon his correspond- 
ent to pay Mr. Sterne fifteen hundred livres, should the gen- 
tleman be in need of it. Sterne needed the sum and accepted 
it as a "friendly act of civility", prompted by the generous 
heart of his banker. A filled purse sent the Sternes on to 
Montpellier, with stops and digressions all along the route. 
This town, which they had passed through before, must have 
pleased them for several reasons. Like Toulouse, it always 
had its English colony in the winter; and it was pleasantly 
situated on a slope whence were visible mountains and sea. 
We may wonder, too, whether it ever occurred to Sterne that 



A GENTLEMAN OF FEANCE 317 

Master Rabelais took his Baccalaureate degree in Medicine at 
the University of Montpellier and lectured there on Galen and 
Hippocrates. To Montpellier were found, however, two 
objections. Provisions there were "a third dearer than at 
Toulouse", and the place had "a bad character * * * as the 
grave of consumptive people". So the Sternes quickly broke 
camp for Aix and Marseilles, making the usual long detours. 
Aix, the capital of Provence, Sterne disliked because Toulouse 
had already given him a surfeit of parliaments. Marseilles, 
then a small town running about the old port, with wooded 
hills for background, was attractive enough; but house rent 
and cost of living were "enormous". "I could not take", 
said Sterne, "the most miserable apartments under nine or 
ten guineas a month", and everything else was "in propor- 
tion". Balancing the pour and the contre for each of the 
places which they had visited, Sterne decided upon Mont- 
pellier; and posted directly thither with his household. His 
purse was, of course, the determining factor in the account. 
As for life and death, he said, "I love to run hazards rather 
than die by inches". 

The Sternes returned to Montpellier near the end of Sep- 
tember. By taking apartments instead of a house — evidently 
their plan — they should have lived as cheaply, though not as 
luxuriously, as at Toulouse. Good lodgings on the hill, 
accommodating two or three persons, were obtainable for three 
guineas a month; and meals, without wine, cost a family of 
that number about ten livres a day. The local markets were 
"well supplied with fish, poultry, butcher's meat, and game, 
at reasonable rates". The ordinary wine of the district, if 
one wished to drink it, was exceedingly cheap; while the 
sweet wine of Frontignan, Yorick's favourite next to bur- 
gundy, was made near Cette, the seaport of Montpellier. 
The city was also famous for the distillation of pleasant 
drams or liqueurs of various sorts. Sterne, if he managed 
well, certainly had no cause for complaint. 

A sojourn in Montpellier, though very like one at 
Toulouse, afforded greater variety of scene and character. 
"Pour or five" English families stayed through the winter, 
taking houses or apartments near one another for free inter- 



318 LAURENCE STERNE 

course; but who they were we do not know, except that the 
Hewitts seem to have migrated hither so as to be with their 
friends. In the town resided also an English physician named 
Fitzmaurice, "a very worthy sensible " practitioner, and a 
' 'Mr. Ray, an English merchant and banker, * * * a gentle- 
man of great probity and worth", who cashed the bills of his 
countrymen, looked after their letters, and helped them over 
all troubles. Sterne formed "a particular friendship", too, 
with a man who was buying up the wines of the present 
vintage to ship to London. Of his friend he wrote to the 
Earl of Fauconberg and offered to send over a couple of 
hogsheads as a present, provided his lordship would pay the 
duty thereon. The inhabitants of Montpellier were happy 
and prosperous, as a stranger might quickly see by a walk 
through the narrow streets on a pleasant evening; for he 
would observe all along his way "the better sort of both 
sexes" sitting out on the stone seats by their doors, "convers- 
ing with great mirth and familiarity ' ', with here and there a 
group singing a roundelay accompanied by the violin. To 
the east of the town, by the gate of the citadel, was a long 
esplanade, where people gathered every day to take the air, 
and to the east was the Peyrou, a still more agreeable prom- 
enade, whence one obtained a view of the Cevennes on the one 
side and of the Mediterranean on the other. The beautiful 
prospects and the pure elastic air attracted Sterne on first 
sight, for they would be, he thought, temptations to take him 
out of doors like the rest. At this time the town was gar- 
risoned by two battalions, of which one was "the Irish regi- 
ment of Berwick, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Tents", 
who treated the English with great politeness and hospitality. 
The social season opened with two concerts a week at the 
theatre, called the Comedie, in the place of the same name; 
and these entertainments were followed by a line of comedies 
as at Toulouse, performed, it may be, by the identical com- 
pany of strollers. When Sterne berated Toulouse and Aix 
as parliament towns which he could no longer endure, he 
seems to have forgotten that Montpellier was one also. As 
in the other provincial capitals, the season reached its height 
at Montpellier when the states of Languedoc assembled at the 



A GENTLEMAN OF FEANCE 319 

Hotel de Yille in gorgeous processions and ceremonies, which 
Sterne called "a fine raree-shew, with the usual accompany- 
ments of fiddles, bears, and puppet-shews". Then came, 
closing the winter, a succession of dinners and receptions 
given by the governor and other high officials. 

Now and then English tourists who were moving about 
southern France through the winter, stopped at Montpellier 
for a week or so, staying at the Cheval Blanc or going into 
furnished lodgings. In November arrived Smollett the 
novelist, all worked out and suffering from asthma, in com- 
pany with his wife and two other English ladies. Though 
on the way from Paris to Nice, he made the long detour to 
lay the case of his health before Dr. Antoine Fizes, a 
climatologist of wide renown, "the Boerhaave of Montpel- 
lier", as he was called. Fearing the results of a personal 
encounter with the learned physician, who was reported 
arrogant in deportment, Smollett consulted him by means of 
a long letter in Latin, and received in reply, to his disgust, a 
long letter in French. The novelist proved the physician's 
diagnosis false, turned with loathing from the usual prescrip- 
tion of bouillons and ass's milk, and savagely denounced the 
* ' great lanthorn of medicine " as a knave and arrant humbug. 
Unfortunately for Montpellier, a week's rain set in a few 
days after Smollett's arrival, "leaving the air so loaded with 
vapours that there was no walking after sunset, without being 
wetted by the dew almost to the skin ' '. There were, however, 
some bright days during Smollett's visit, and he said many 
interesting things about the city, its sociable inhabitants and 
their customs, upon which we have based largely our account 
as a background to Sterne's life there. 

The novelist was especially pleased at his reception by the 
English residents, who made it a point to call upon all new- 
comers. Did Sterne, like the rest, pay his formal respects to 
the man whose review had slashed his jerkin year after year? 
We have no direct information on that point; but neither 
Sterne nor Smollett could have let literary animosities inter- 
fere with the etiquette prescribed for gentlemen. The 
novelist, as he definitely stated, met and conversed with Mrs. 



320 LAURENCE STERNE 

Sterne,* who told him incidentally about a young consump- 
tive among their friends, a Mr. Oswald of London, that came 
over for the treatment of the celebrated climatologist. After 
a month of it, Oswald said to the doctor one day: "I take 
your prescriptions punctually ; but, instead of being the better 
for them, I have now not an hour's remission from the fever 

in the four-and-twenty. 1 cannot conceive the meaning of 

it." The doctor replied that the reason should be plain, for 
"the air of Montpellier was too sharp for his lungs, which 
required a softer climate". "Then you are a sordid villain", 
retorted the young man, "for allowing me to stay here till 
my constitution is irretrievable. ' ' A few weeks later Oswald 
died in the neighbourhood of Toulouse. On hearing this 
dismal story, Smollett, who feared consumption for himself, 
packed up and hastened to Nice. 

The next month Sterne received a visit from a group of 
his most intimate friends, and missed the sight of others 
whom he would have been glad to see. In the previous sum- 
mer, Tollot had taken the road with Thornhill and a younger 
brother, both of London, and a Mr. Garland, who will be 
remembered as one of the Demoniacs. From Paris, they went 
into Belgium, where Garland left them at Brussels for home ; 
while the others, after six weeks at Spa, journeyed leisurely 
through Lorraine and Alsace into Switzerland, as far south as 
Geneva, to call upon their friend Rousseau ; and thence they 
turned west to Lyons for a circular tour of southern France 
to Bordeaux and round to Paris again. At Lyons, they fell 
in with Hewitt and Charles Turner, a sporting Yorkshire 
squire of Kirkleatham near Skelton, who was taking his wife 
to Aix for the winter. They all went south at the same time, 
some by chaise and others by boat. At Avignon the party 
divided, Hewitt for Montpellier and the rest for Aix. After 
being snowed in at Aix for a fortnight, Tollot and the Thorn- 
hills proceeded to Montpellier. They were delighted — Tollot 
is the spokesman in a letter to Hall- Stevenson — to see again 
the "bon et agreable Tristram", whom they found apparently 
enjoying himself to the full, just as at Paris two years before. 

* Smollett, Travels through France and Germany, in Works, edited 
by W. E. Henley, 128 (London, 1900). 



A GENTLEMAN OF FEANCE 321 

But they pitied him for the persecutions of a wife who 
jealously followed him everywhere, causing him, they fancied, 
many unhappy moments, which he bore nevertheless with 
"the patience of an angel". In a word, the bonne dame 
was from their point of view de trop. On learning from 
Sterne that he was about to return to his "other wife", 
meaning thereby his church at Coxwold, Tollot invited him 
to his own hotel and table at Paris, and promised to conduct 
him safely back to England with his other friends.* 

When the company broke up in anticipation of a joyous 
reunion at Paris, Sterne regarded himself in perfect health, 
despite the attack of rain, mists, and snows. But as ever, he 
was again deceived as to his real condition. On January 5, 
1764, he began a letter to Foley, and, when halfway through 
it, broke off to take a ride on the road towards Pezenas. His 
beast proved to be "as unmoveable as Don Quixote's wooden- 
horse " ; no motion was to be got out of him at all except by 
continued lashings, which "half dislocated" Sterne's arm, 
until his head was turned homeward; and then he struck 
into a trot. The exertion on a chilly morning brought on a 
fever, which confined Sterne to his bed for more than a week. 
Not till the fifteenth was he able to finish the letter to his 
banker, in which he said : " I have suffered in this scuffle with 
death terribly — but unless the spirit of prophecy deceive 
me — I shall not die but live — in the meantime, dear Foley, 

let us live as merrily but as innocently as we can It has 

ever been as good, if not better, than a bishoprick to me — 
and I desire no other." During a month of convalescence, 
Sterne was put through the customary course of treatment, 
either under Dr. Fizes or under the local faculty who had 
acquired the art of medicine from his practice. "My 
physicians", he wrote on the first of February, "have almost 
poisoned me with what they call bouillons refraichissants — 
'tis a cock flayed alive and boiled with poppy seeds, then 

pounded in a mortar, afterwards pass'd through a sieve 

There is to be one crawfish in it, and I was gravely told it 
must be a male one — a female would do me more hurt than 
good." At the end of the period, the physicans informed 

* Cooper, Seven Letters, 5. 
21 



322 LAUEENCE STEENE 

him, just as Dr. Fizes had informed young Oswald, that ' ' the 
sharp air of Montpellier" would be fatal to him, if he 
remained longer. "And why, good people", Sterne replied, 
"were you not kind enough to tell me this sooner?" While 
still unable to be out, Sterne was particularly honoured by a 
call from the Earl of Rochford, who was passing through 
Montpellier en route to assume his duties as English Ambas- 
sador to the Court of Spain. The two men who met here far 
from home and conversed of their common friends, must have 
been old acquaintances; for Lord Rochford, besides being an 
invariable subscriber to Yorick's books, was a lavish host in 
the political set among whom Sterne moved when in London. 
One may readily see how events were driving Sterne back 
to England. Though his life may have been saved by his 
first hurried journey to Paris, his health, on the whole, had 
not been benefited by his long sojourn abroad. Indeed, it 
probably would have been better for him had he never gone 
to the south of France. From the first he fretted under his 
inability to proceed with Shandy and thus lay another tax 
— as he always expressed it — upon the public, so necessary to 
the support of his family. Hopeless on this score, he sent 
his books back to England the previous spring by way of 
Bordeaux, addressed in care of Becket his publisher. Not 
a chapter, so far as one knows, did he add to his work while 
staying at Montpellier. His financial as well as his physical 
condition had grown worse and worse. How he got through 
the winter would be a puzzle, did we not know Sterne as a 
skilful borrower. As early as November 24, 1763, he wrote 
to Mills, the London merchant, requesting that he might draw 
upon him to the extent of fifty pounds. As for surety, he 
said "the whole Shandean family" will stand bound for the 
capital; and as to immediate prospects, "you shall be paid 
the very first money God sends". He was doubtless helped 
out, as his letters would imply, by Foley, Ray, and other 
friends with whom he was living "as brothers". Really 
thrice a bankrupt, in purse, health, and intellect, Sterne 
wisely decided to manage henceforth as best he could in 
England, and to make another effort at Tristram Shandy in 
the quiet of Coxwold. 



A GENTLEMAN OF FEANCE 323 

In carrying out this design, Mrs. Sterne strangely stood 
in the way. Whenever her husband suggested, as he had 
been doing for a year, a return to England, she pleaded her 
own welfare and her daughter's. Her rheumatism troubled 
her less in France than at home, and Lydia should stay on 
and complete her education. This opposition of wishes, 
though not "as sour as lemon" was not, in Sterne's phrase, 
"as sweet as sugar". Out of patience with her view of the 
situation, Sterne finally told his wife, after his last illness at 
Montpellier, that he was going back to Coxwold as soon as he 
should be able, but that she might remain on with Lydia for 
another two or three years, if she chose to do so. He clearly 
saw the financial and social difficulties of a separate mainte- 
nance, and agreed to it only with great reluctance when 
brought to his wit's end. His wife and daughter were to go 
to Montauban, north from Toulouse, for the present, and if 
they wished, they might spend the summer at Bagneres. As 
first planned, he was to return by way of Geneva, for a visit 
doubtless with Rousseau and Voltaire, and "then fall down 
the Rhine to Holland", whence he could embark directly for 
Hull and avoid the temptations of Paris and London. But 
the generous offer of Tollot to share with him his apartments 
and table at Paris evidently determined him to retrace his 
steps by the old route. About the first of March, 1764, or as 
soon as he received his Christmas remittance from Coxwold, 
Sterne turned his face towards home "in high spirits * * * 
except for a tear at parting with my little slut", his affection- 
ate name for Lydia. With his wife he left a hundred louis 
for pocket money, and promised her two hundred guineas a 
year. 

Sterne traversed the road back to Paris without any inci- 
dent he thought worth recording. On his arrival, in the 
second or third week of March, he went directly to the Hotel 
d 'Entragues, in the Rue Tournon near the Luxembourg, where 
were established Tollot and the Thornhills. With these "good 
and generous souls", though Tollot was continually out of 
sorts with the cold spring, Sterne lived "a most jolly non- 
sensical life" for two months and more. Across the Seine, 
in the Rue St. Nicaise, was their friend John Wilkes, who had 



324 LAURENCE STEENE 

recently been expelled from the House of Commons. Like 
many others, they regarded him as a martyr to free speech. 
Sterne and Wilkes often met, and on one occasion formed ' ' an 
odd party"* with the " goddesses of the theatre", at the 
house of one Hope, whom the politician described as "a 
Dutchman metamorphosed into an Italian" by long residence 
in Rome and Venice. Much in their company, too, was 
Stephen Fox, "dissipating the ill-got fleeting wealth of his 
father ' \ In the summer Lord Holland came abroad with his 
younger son, Charles James Fox ; but that was too late for the 
humourist to fall in with them. Every day Sterne saw also 
Lawson Trotter, the Jacobite outlaw, who, despite exile, was 
"eternally joyous and jocundissimus". To complete the 
scene of Yorick's immediate society, he was "smitten with 
the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent". 
Once, twice, and thrice every day, when no other amusement 
was at hand, Sterne trudged off to this woman's hotel for 
sentimental converse. Before the spring was over, she went 
to the south of France, and therewith ended the comedy. 

It is to be presumed that Sterne renewed his intimacy with 
French society, revisiting the salons of d'Holbach, Suard, 
the Comte de Bissy, and the Prince de Conti, where he had 
been so cordially received on his first coming to Paris. On 
this point, however, the meagre correspondence covering the 
period is silent. One misses greatly letters like those of two 
years before to Garrick, with whom he lost touch during a 
long absence. A letter to Garrick would doubtless have told 
us about "the uncommon applause" with which Voltaire's 
Olympie was greeted at the Comedie Francaise in March, and 
about the decorations, which were "allowed to be the most 
magnificent and striking that ever were exhibited on that 
stage ".f The few letters that we have of these months relate 
to family affairs or to the English colony. Two years before, 
there was hardly a score of English gentlemen in Paris and 
they were mostly birds of passage. Sterne, on account of his 
literary prestige, then easily became the lion of the season. 

* Letter of Wilkes to Charles Churchill, dated Paris, April 10, 1764, 
in Wilkes's Correspondence with Churchill. — British Museum. Addi- 
tional Manuscripts, 30,878. 

f London Chronicle, March 29-31, 1764. 



A GENTLEMAN OF FEANCE 325 

In the meantime all was changed. Since the peace, says 
Horace Walpole, the way to Paris had become, "like the 
description of the grave, * * * the way of all flesh". To 
pay the expenses of the English who flocked thither, Foley 
was receiving every month out of England £30,000 in remit- 
tances.* An example for this display was set by the new 
Ambassador, the Earl of Hertford, a man of great wealth and 
generosity, who took for his residence the Hotel de Laurag- 
nais,f a large and luxurious mansion near the Louvre. With 
him was his son Lord Beauchamp, an amiable young man 
whom everybody liked; and there still hovered about the 
embassy Lord Tavistock, son of the Duke of Bedford who 
had signed the articles of peace. Around these men centered 
the most fashionable English society. Every English gentle- 
man, on coming to Paris, called at the embassy, and Lord 
Hertford returned the call, with invitations to dinners and 
receptions and to his Sunday chapel at the Hotel de Laurag- 
nais. No one was ostracised on account of political opinions. 
Lawson Trotter, who dared not step foot in England, might 
be seen almost any day at the embassy; and even Wilkes, 
convicted of libel against his Majesty's government, was tol- 
erated, though with maimed rites. Sterne, who was an 
especial favourite, dined almost every week with the Ambas- 
sador or Lord Beauchamp or Lord Tavistock. 

Lord Hertford brought over with him as his Secretary, 
though the appointment was not quite official, Hume, the 
philosopher and historian. The choice seemed very odd to 
everybody who did not know Hume thoroughly. Hume was, 
if one likes to say it, "a coarse, clumsily built" Scotsman, 
halting and heavy in speech ; and as to French, he sometimes 
could never get, if at all embarrassed, beyond Eh hien! vous 
voila. And yet beneath this rough exterior was a man 
morally sound to the heart, of great and commanding intel- 
lect, and in disposition as genial and pliable as the author of 
Tristram Shandy. When Sterne reached Paris, Hume was 
feeding upon the same ambrosia of which he himself had 
grown sick two years before. "All the courtiers", wrote 

* Walpole, Letters, edited by Toynbee, V, 345. 

t London Chronicle, March 22-24, 1764. 



326 LAUKENCE STERNE 

Hume to Adam Smith, "who surrounded me when I was 
introduced to Madame de Pompadour, assured me that she 
was never heard to say so much to any man."* A lady at 
Court, it was rumoured, fell into immediate disgrace for ask- 
ing who he was. With similar adulation Hume passed through 
all the great houses, where no reception was complete without 
him. Chamf ort, being asked on one occasion what had become 
of the lion, replied: "I think he must be dead, for I have 
seen him only three times to-day." His presence was de- 
manded at masquerades and tableaux and pantomimes; and 
at the theatre his big head "was usually seen between two 
pretty faces". 

Paris could manage only one great sensation a season. 
In those days, it was either Sterne, Hume, Walpole, or Gar- 
rick, one at a time, never all together. This year Hume, who 
had the start of Sterne by several months, easily overshadowed 
him. A secondary role, nevertheless, had its honours, one of 
which Sterne particularly cherished. On a Saturday after- 
noon in March or April, while he was "playing a sober game 
of whist with the Thornhills", Lord Hertford's messenger 
appeared with a request that he preach, on the next morning, 
in the chapel at the new embassy in place of Dr. James Trail, 
the dull chaplain. Though Sterne had resolved never to 
preach more, this invitation could not be refused. He broke 
abruptly from his amusement, and set himeslf at once to the 
task of writing a sermon, on a text that came into his head 
at a flash without any consideration. The next morning the 
little chapel was filled with "a concourse of all nations and 
religions" — diplomats and officials from various embassies, 
Koman Catholics, Protestants, deists and atheists. Hume 
was there, and, it is said, d'Holbach and Diderot. The text 
which Sterne chose on the spur of the moment, was most amus- 
ingly inappropriate for anyone except a jester; and yet the 
preacher seemed unaware of the jest until all was over. His 
theme, based on 2 Kings xx. 15, was the rebuke that Isaiah 
administered to Hezekiah for exposing the treasures of the 
royal palace to the Babylonian ambassadors, and the subse- 

* Life and Correspondence of David Hume, II, 169 (Edinburgh, 
1846). 



A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 327 

quent prophecy that those treasures would some day be car- 
ried away to Babylon. "Nothing shall be left, saith the 
Lord." 

The preacher related, with several fanciful enlargements, 
the story of Hezekiah's illness and of the miracle that was 
performed in his behalf. Instead of taking the Scriptures 
simply, which say that a prince of Babylon sent presents and 
messengers to Hezekiah to congratulate him upon his recovery, 
Sterne conjectured a hidden reason for this friendly act of 
courtesy. "As the Chaldeans", he said naively, "were great 
searchers into the secrets of nature, especially into the motions 
of the celestial bodies, in all probability they had taken notice, 
at that distance, of the strange appearance of the shadow's 
returning ten degrees backwards upon their dials; * * * so 
that this astronomical miracle # * * had been sufficient by 
itself to have led a curious people as far as Jerusalem, that 
they might see the man for whose sake the sun had forsook 
his course. ' ' From this point, the preacher went on to enquire 
into the mistake that Hezekiah made in taking the Babylonian 
ambassadors through the secret rooms of the palace. "Where 
was the harm", Sterne asked, "in all this?" His conclusion 
was that God, "who searches into the heart of man", saw in 
Hezekiah pride and ostentation, not obvious perhaps to 
mortal vision, though deserving in God's sight, of the severest 
punishment. This analysis of Hezekiah's character led to 
the generalisation that most men go abroad "armed inside 
and out with two motives", one for the world and one for 
private use — a favourite theory of Sterne's, upon which he 
proceeded to draw many illustrations from the hypocrites he 
had observed through his lifetime. Over against these ima- 
ginary character-sketches was set, in concluding his discourse, 
another and smaller group of the really good men and women 
whom an ungenerous world persists in misunderstanding, as 
if it would "rob heroes of the best part of their glory — their 
virtue ' \ 

Sterne's honorarium was a dinner that Sunday evening 
at the English embassy, to which were invited the most dis- 
tinguished of the congregation. It was presumably on this 
occasion that "a prompt French marquis", as related in the 



328 LAURENCE STERNE 

Sentimental Journey, mistook Hume for John Home, author 
of the once famous tragedy of Douglas, whose names were 
pronounced alike. Sitting beside the ambassador's secretary, 
the marquis turned to him and enquired whether he was 
Home the poet. "No, said Hume — mildly Tant pis, re- 
plied the Marquis. It is Hume the historian, said another 

Tant mieux, said the Marquis. And Mr. Hume, who is 

a man of excellent heart, return 'd thanks for both." This, 
however, was not the most amusing incident, if it occurred 
then, of the evening. The real merriment in which all shared, 
started when Hume began to quiz Yorick slily on Hezekiah 
and the "astronomical miracle". Sterne, who — never a 
hypocrite — believed implicitly in miracles, accepted the chal- 
lenge, while the other guests looked on and listened with 
delight to the droll combat. The story of the good-natured 
passage at arms, when it got out, was magnified into a hot 
dispute ; and Sterne, troubled by the idle rumours, set matters 
right in one of his letters and no doubt in conversation. 
"David", as he put it, "was disposed to make a little merry 
with the parson, and in return the parson was equally dis- 
posed to make a little mirth with the infidel; we laughed at 
one another, and the company laughed with us both." Not 
content with the mere statement of what occurred at Lord 
Hertford's table, Sterne took the occasion afforded by his 
letter to pay a most just tribute to the gentle temper of his 
friendly antagonist. "I should be most exceedingly sur- 
prized", he wrote, "to hear that David ever had an unpleas- 
ant contention with any man; — and if I should be made to 
believe that such an event had happened, nothing would 
persuade me that his opponent was not in the wrong; for in 
my life did I never meet with a being of a more placid and 
gentle nature; and it is this amiable turn of his character 
that has given more consequence and force to his scepticism 
than all the arguments of his sophistry."* The amende 
honor able was quite unnecessary. 

Over-exertion resulted in another hemorrhage, which kept 
Sterne in Paris longer than he had intended to stay. As he 

* Original Letters of the late Reverend Mr. Laurence Sterne, 126-27 
(London, 1788). 



A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 329 

turned his face once more towards England, for which he was 
passionately longing, his mind also reverted to his family in 
the south. On May 15, 1764, he wrote to Lydia, enumerating 
the presents that had been sent to her, and giving his final 
directions for her conduct in his absence: 

"My dear Lydia * * * I acquiesed in your staying in 
France — likewise it was your mother's wish — but I must tell 
you both (that unless your health had not been a plea made 

use of) I should have wished you both to return with me. 

I have sent you the Spectators, and other books, particularly 
Metastasio; but I beg my girl to read the former, and only 
make the latter her amusement. 1 hope you have not for- 
got my last request, to make no friendships with the French 
women — not that I think ill of them all, but sometimes women 

of the best principles are the most insinuating nay I am so 

jealous of you that I should be miserable were I to see you 

had the least grain of coquetry in your composition. You 

have enough to do — for I have also sent you a guittar — and 
as you have no genius for drawing (tho' you never could be 

made to believe it) pray waste not your time about it. 

Remember to write to me as to a friend in short, whatever 

comes into your little head, and then it will be natural. 

If your mother's rheumatism continues and she chooses to go 
to Bagnieres — tell her not to be stopped for want of money, 
for my purse shall be as open as my heart. * * * Kiss your 
mother from me, and believe me your affectionate L. Sterne." 



CHAPTER XV 

YORKSHIRE AND LONDON 
TRISTRAM SHANDY: VOLUMES YII AND VIII 

JUNE 1764— APEIL 1765 

Sterne set out from Paris for home on Thursday, the 
twenty-fourth of May, in company with the Thornhills, and 
Tollot, who was going over to England. He should have 
reached London on the twenty-ninth; but there may have 
been delays, for the earliest notice of his return was an 
announcement in the postscript to Lloyd's Evening Post for 
June 2-4, that "The Rev. Mr. Sterne, the celebrated author 
of Tristram Shandy, is arrived from Paris, where he has long 
resided for his health". The news was taken up and repeated 
by other newspapers to an extent so unusual as to indicate 
that Sterne's presence in London at this time came as a 
surprise. During his long sojourn abroad, he had kept in 
correspondence with very few of his friends in town. Even 
Garrick, owing to a misunderstanding, had been dropped 
after the first weeks in Paris two years before. The coolness 
— if it may be called so — came about in this way. Sterne 
wrote to Garrick once or twice from southern France, but 
received no word in return. Garrick in fact duly replied, 
but his letters miscarried. Each supposed that he was 
"scalped" by the other, and so all letters between them ceased. 
Public interest in Sterne had flagged terribly. Becket sold 
few or no Shandys now, and other publishers were no longer 
putting out imitations. Indeed the old rumour that Sterne 
was dead had never been quite laid, as one may see from an 
occasional letter to the newspapers through the year sixty- 
three. Somebody, for instance, attacked his memory in 
St. James's Magazine, a literary monthly conducted by 
Robert Lloyd; whereupon a correspondent, in the issue for 
July, 1763, vindicated Sterne's character by adapting Gray's 






YOKKSHIKE AND LONDON 331 

famous elegy to "The Decease of Tristram Shandy", towards 
the close of which Sterne was conducted to the Elysian Fields 
and placed on an embowered seat near Rabelais, Lucian, and 
Cervantes. 

The unexpected guest thus came upon London almost as 
one returned from the dead. While in town he stayed, along 
with Tollot, with the Thornhills, who had a house in John 
Street near Berkeley Square. As it was the tag end of the 
season, most of Sterne's old friends were away. Garrick, 
suffering, like Sterne, a temporary eclipse, was travelling 
with his wife on the Continent. Foley, who was in London 
on business, Sterne somehow missed, as if the two men were 
"two buckets of a well", passing and drawing away from 
each other. Three weeks were spent in London and the 
environs, during which Sterne visited, though he gives no 
names, such friends as he could find; among whom, we now 
know, was Reynolds, who granted him a sitting, as the 
painter's Pocket-Booh shows, on Monday, the eleventh of 
June. In this portrait, overlooked by all writers on Sterne, 
the humourist was drawn at half-length on canvas measuring 
thirty by twenty-five inches. Wearing his wig and gown, 
Sterne took his seat nearly facing Sir Joshua and leaned his 
right elbow on a table, with the hand supporting his tired 
head. It was a "very clever portrait * * * in a less uni- 
form tone" than was usual with Reynolds, though lacking in 
that extraordinary insight into Sterne's character displayed 
by the painter four years before.* 

After his rest in London, Sterne went down to York alone, 
where he arrived late in June.f As he intended never to 
preach again, he passed the next two months idly in and 
about York. The races in the third week of August, accom- 
panied by balls and concerts at the Assembly Rooms, to 
which he subscribed this year, gave him an opportunity to 
see many of his old Yorkshire and more distant friends, 
including Hall-Stevenson, who came for the festivities. 

* This portrait was given by Sterne to Edward Stanley, who be- 
queathed it to his son-in-law, James Whatman, of Venters, Maidstone. 
It was engraved by Wivell and by Nagle. — Graves and Cronin, A His- 
tory of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Vol. Ill, 935, IV, 1418. 

t York Courant, June 26, 1764. 



332 LAUKENCE STEENE 

"Mr. Turner" and "Mr. Hall" both entered horses and both 
lost. Tollot and Hewitt, who had returned to England to 
look after his estates, were Sterne's guests. And there were 
present, among his acquaintances of rank, the Marquis and 
Marchioness of Rockingham, Lord Fitzwilliam, and Lord 
Effingham of Surrey.* 

As soon as the York races were over, Sterne went out to 
Coxwold to look after his "few poor sheep in the wilderness". 
Within a fortnight he grew uneasy of the quiet life, and 
decamped to Scarborough, whither were gathering people of 
quality for the spa season and the September races. Scar- 
borough, at that time the most fashionable of the northern 
watering-places, is beautifully situated on a lofty cliff over- 
looking the German Ocean. The cliff, broken by a ravine, 
runs along in a curve so as to form an immense crescent 
enclosing a wide expanse of water. Down by the sea was 
the spa house, with a long line of the newly-invented bathing 
machines, stretching out in either direction over smooth, 
hard sand, admirably adapted for promenading, driving, or 
racing. Thence rose an amphitheatre of streets and build- 
ings, tier above tier, clustering on the north beneath the 
ruins of an old castle. At this romantic resort Sterne passed 
three weeks with the Earl of Shelburne and the Marquis of 
Granby, the politician and the soldier. He would have come 
away, he said, marvellously improved by the air and waters, 
had he not debilitated his strength as fast as it was gained, 
by "playing the good fellow" too much with his noble 
friends, whose pleasures were found rather exalted. His 
sojourn at Scarborough was marred only by the absence of 
Hall-Stevenson, who decided this year to drink the waters of 
Harrogate. 

After these sacrifices to the god of laughter, Sterne settled 
down in his "philosophical hut" at Coxwold, where various 
matters of business awaited him. The Archbishop of York, 
not quite satisfied with James Kilner, the assistant curate of 
the parish, had delayed his ordination until Sterne's return 
from abroad. At the archbishop's request, Sterne enquired 
further into the conduct and character of his curate, and 
* YorTc Courant, August 28, 1764. 



YOEKSHIRE AND LONDON 333 

reported that "the man is well liked as a quiet and an honest 
man, and withal as a good reader and preacher". "I believe 
him", the humourist enlarged on his own part, "a good 
scholar also — I do not say a graceful one — for his bodily 
presence is mean ; and were he to stand for Ordination before 
a Popish Bishop, the poor fellow would be disabled by a 
Canon in a moment." At this time, too, Stephen Croft was 
taking the first steps towards enclosing and dividing Stilling- 
ton Common and other waste lands, "containing in the 
whole, one thousand four hundred acres, or thereabouts". 
This project demanded Sterne's attention; for, as Yicar of 
Stillington, he was "entitled to the Tythes of Wool and 
Lamb, and to all the small Tythes and Vicarial Dues grow- 
ing, arising, or renewing within the said Parish, and also to 
two - Messuages or Cottages there, and to certain Lands within 
the said Fields and Ings".* 

Presently a letter arrived from Mrs. Sterne, requesting 
fifty pounds immediately, and complaining of her treatment 
by Foley's correspondent at Montauban, who, in denying her 
credit for small amounts, hinted as the reason that she was 
separated from her husband for life. Sterne at once des- 
patched a sharp letter to his Paris banker, in which he 
branded as false the ill-natured rumour in circulation at 
Montauban, and begged of him that Mrs. Sterne have credit 
up to two hundred guineas and more, should she ask for it. 
Sterne's heat was a bit Falstaffian, for he already owed his 
banker nearly a hundred guineas on his wife's account, and 
had to admit that a bill for fifty pounds could not be sent 
over just then, as his finances were falling short most unex- 
pectedly. There was good reason for complaint on Sterne's 
part, though he kept silent, of the extravagance of his wife, 
who had already received a hundred pounds since his return. 
By good luck money became plentiful in a month or two, 
thanks to Becket's advances on the next Shandy s; and Mrs. 
Sterne was put at her ease. 

In the disposition Sterne made of his time, a scant six 
weeks, shortened by these interruptions, was allowed for com- 

* Stillington Enclosure Act, Private Acts of Parliament, 6 George 
III, c. 16. 



334 LAURENCE STERNE 

pleting Tristram Shandy, which had been commenced and 
broken off at Toulouse. It was about the first of October 
Avhen he took up in earnest, though he had dallied with it in 
the summer, the story of my uncle Toby and the widow Wad- 
man, with the manifest intent of running it through the 
entire instalment of this year. But interest and fancy soon 
languished, notwithstanding hard cudgelling of his brains, so 
that by November he had arrived only at the end of one vol- 
ume. Then he conceived the notion, it is a fair inference 
from his letters, of fitting into Tristram Shandy the comic 
version of his travels through France, already composed in 
whole or in part as a separate work or a loose continuation. 
To this end Sterne substituted Mr. Tristram Shandy for him- 
self or Yorick as the name of the traveller, and let him recall 
while at Auxerre an earlier tour with the elder Shandys and 
Corporal Trim. This device for bringing the Shandy house- 
hold over to the Continent has generally been regarded very 
maladroit; but — besides the urgent call for something of the 
kind, if there were to be two volumes this year — Sterne saw 
a jest on the public, to whom he would give an opportunity, 
afforded by no other book, of pursuing two journeys through 
France at one and the same time. In order to lend a sem- 
blance of unity to the whole, my uncle Toby's courtship of 
the widow Wadman was put last, where it would give the 
final impression. The adjustment completed in this curious 
way about the middle of November, Sterne received a visit 
from a London friend recovering from a serious illness, 
with whom he went over to Skelton Castle for a week or ten 
days with Hall-Stevenson and his garrison, before leaving for 
London to try the public once more. 

The seventh and eighth volumes of The Life and Opinions 
of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman duly appeared from Becket's 
press on Tuesday, January 22, 1765. Each volume bore on 
its title-page a quotation from Pliny, likely through Burton: 
Non enim excursus hie ejus, sed opus ipsum est, meant as a 
sly apology for the inclusion of the travels ; and at the top of 
the first numbered page of the seventh volume, the author 
placed his signature as a guarantee that the wit and humour 



YOEKSHIRE AND LONDON 335 

were all his own. The price of the set was kept at four 
shillings. 

As the instalment was much slighter than any hitherto 
put forth, Sterne had to accept a good deal of banter on the 
score that he was amusing himself at the cost of the public. 
Smollett's man on the Critical Review* likened the two tiny- 
volumes to "the invisible cock" which Corporal Trim paid 
his money to see within the showman's box, though he knew 
the thing invisible. And Suard, apropos of their appearance, 
retold the story of the man who advertised that he would put 
himself into a bottle before the eyes of his audience. On 
the appointed day, the theatre was thronged with a credulous 
multitude to behold the wonder; but the droll carried away 
their money and left the bottle as empty as the last two vol- 
umes of Tristram Shandy A 

The jest of the journey through France was not very well 
understood by the general public. As Sterne meant it, 
this part of his book was "a laughing good-tempered satire 
against travelling (as puppies travel)". To gain the desired 
effect, he let the thin narrative of his own journey, in which 
he professed to see nothing and to experience nothing beyond 
cross-accidents, run through all the customary details of the 
towns visited, such as the plan and history of Calais, the 
number of streets in Paris, and the wonders of Lyons — much 
as one might find them in the guides of Piganiol de la Force, 
which everybody thought indispensable to a trip abroad. 
All the scenes and objects which make travelling a delight, 
he playfully maintained, were not set down in the books; for 
none had told him that he would meet Janatone at Montreuil, 
Old Honesty at Lyons, or Nannette on the plains of Lan- 
guedoc. However much these episodes might be admired for 
their charm and novelty, it was felt that the crude facts taken 
from histories and guide-books were mere padding to stuff 
out a six-penny pamphlet. And the story which Sterne 
foisted upon his travels — the story of the Abbess of Andoii- 
illets and the little novice Margarita, who divide the syllables 
of two indecorous words between them to save a sin — brought 

* January, 1765. 

t Quoted in London Chronicle, April 16-18, 1765. 



336 LAUEENCE STERNE 

out the current charge of indecency, with a hint that the tale 
was " picked out of the common Parisian jest-books". In 
France, however, where the words were employed by every 
mule-driver, the episode was regarded as light and graceful 
ridicule of the formal morality which disfigured the cloisters. 
It far excelled, says Garat, Gresset's Ver-Vert, or the verse- 
tale of a parrot who came to an untimely end among the 
sisterhood at Nevers for repeating phrases caught on a jour- 
ney down the Loire.* 

The merriment against Sterne was long drawn out in the 
Monthly Revieiv for February, 1765, through a score of pages 
in irony and burlesque. The reviewer represented himself as 
going in company with Mr. Shandy on the entire tour through 
France, and as quizzing him on the salient incidents by the 
way, and on the sequel describing my uncle Toby's assault, 
in military form, upon the heart of the widow Wadman. 
Much sport was made of Death, the long-striding scoundrel 
dogging their heels, of the adventure with Old Honesty at 
Lyons, and of the " Story of the King of Bohemia and his 
Seven Castles", which Trim and my uncle Toby lost somewhere 
between them. "Many choice wits", it was said of Sterne, 
"have excelled in telling a story, but none ever succeeded so 
well in not telling a story, as the British Rabelais hath done in 
this notable instance." The reviewer nevertheless appre- 
ciated in the main, as Suard and everybody else were doing, 
many "amazingly clever" anecdotes and episodes. After 
hearing of Nannette and the vintage dance, he burst into 
a series of exclamations: "Give me thy hand, dear Shandy! 
Give me thy heart! What a delightful scene hast thou 
drawn! What good humour! What ease! What nature!" 
At length came the passage descriptive of the widow Wad- 
man's lambent eye, which the critic could resist no more 
than could my uncle Toby: 

"It was not, Madam, a rolling eye a romping or a 

wanton one nor was it an eye sparkling petulant or 

imperious of high claims and terrifying exactions, which 

* This poem had already appeared in English under the title of Ver- 
Vert, or the Nunnery Parrot (Dodsley, 1759), and must have been as 
well known to Sterne as to Hall-Stevenson, who imitated its style in 
Crazy Tales. 



YOEKSHIEE AND LONDON 337 

would have curdled at once that milk of human nature, of 

which my uncle Toby was made up but 'twas an eye full 

of gentle salutations and soft responses speaking 

not like the trumpet stop of some ill-made organ, in which 
many an eye I talk to, holds coarse converse but whisper- 
ing soft like the last low accent of an expiring saint 

'How can you live comfortless, captain Shandy, and alone, 

without a bosom to lean your head on or trust your cares 

to?' " 

The humour of the new volumes was quite sufficient to 
reinstate Sterne in his former popularity. "Shandy sells 
well", he wrote in the middle of March, and "I have had a 
lucrative campaign here." As in the old time, social engage- 
ments, beginning moderately, thickened towards the end until 
scarcely a moment could be stolen for letters to his family 
and best friends. His enjoyment during the first months 
was marred only by the absence of Garrick, who, in his long 
tour abroad, had swung round to Paris, where he was being 
overwhelmed with honours. But the actor's spirits were so 
blighted by "a terrible malignant fever" while in Germany, 
that it was uncertain whether he would ever return to the 
stage. As soon as Sterne found out that Garrick was in Paris, 
the old correspondence was renewed in full freedom. "I 

scalp you! my dear Garrick! my dear friend! — foul befal 

the man who hurts a hair of your head ! " So began one of 
Sterne's letters, which drifted off into the recurring burden: 
"Return, return to the few who love you and the thousands 

who admire you. The moment you set your foot upon 

your stage mark ! I tell it you by some magic, irresisted 

power, every fibre about your heart will vibrate afresh, and as 

strong and feelingly as ever Nature, with glory at her 

back, will light up the torch within you and there is 

enough of it left, to heat and enlighten the world these many, 
many, many years. ' ' Frequently through the winter, Sterne 
occupied his box at Drury Lane, taking along with him the 
whole party where he dined, to see Powell, whom many 
thought the equal of Garrick, though that was not Sterne's 
opinion. "Powell! good Heaven!" he exclaimed, "give me 
some one with less smoke and more fire There are who, 

22 



338 LAUEENCE STEENE 

like the Pharisees, still think they shall be heard for much 
speaking. Come — come away, my dear Garrick, and teach 
us another lesson. ' ' Nor did Sterne forget Mrs. Garrick, who 
had been likewise seriously ill. She had, it is said, "a real 
regard" for Mr. Sterne, though she often censured his indis- 
creet conduct. In recompense, Sterne addressed her as "the 
best and wisest of the daughters of Eve", and declared 
himself ready, after all the women he had seen, to "maintain 
her peerless" against any champion. 

In one of these delightful letters, dated March 16, Sterne 
explained his plans for meeting the expense of another con- 
tinental journey. "I am taxing the public", he told Garrick, 
"with two more volumes of sermons, which will more than 

double the gains of Shandy It goes into the world with 

a prancing list de toute la noblesse — which will bring me in 

three hundred pounds, exclusive of the sale of the copy 

so that with all the contempt of money which ma fagon de 
penser has every impress 'd on me, I shall be rich in spite of 
myself: but I scorn, you must know, in the high ton I take 

at present, to pocket all this trash 1 set out to lay a 

portion of it in the service of the world, in a tour round Italy, 

where I shall spring game, or the deuce is in the dice. 

In the beginning of September I quit England, that I may 
avail myself of the time of vintage, when all nature is joyous, 
and so saunter philosophically for a year or so, on the other 
side the Alps." The labour of gathering in all the polite 
world for his Sermons, Sterne took under his own direction 
and made it his sole business during the winter. Wherever 
he dined, one may imagine him requesting the honour of 
including the names of the guests; and he sent out, as we 
know, many letters asking for the aid of friends in obtaining 
subscriptions, that the great list might surpass all others in 
number and brilliancy. Very characteristic of the letters 
that have survived was one to Foley, concluding: "Pray 

present my most sincere compliments to Lady H , whose 

name I hope to insert with many others. As so many men 

of genius furnish me with their names also, I will quarrel with 
Mr. Hume, and call him deist, and what not, unless I have 
his name too My love to Lord W . Your name, Foley, 



YORKSHIRE AND LONDON 339 

I have put in as a free-will offering of my labours your 

list of subscribers you will send 'tis but a crown for six- 
teen sermons Dog cheap ! but I am in quest of honour , 

not money. Adieu, adieu. ' ' 

The successful season in town was broken for a few weeks 
by illness, which sent Sterne, about the middle of March, to 
the milder climate of Bath to recruit his strength. The 
fashionable city of the hills, where congregated people of all 
ranks from the nobility down to tradesmen and adventurers, 
afforded ample scope for light diversion gossip and senti- 
mental conversation in the pump-room looking out on the 
great Roman bath; strolls through the parks and along 
the parades, if one wished to take the air after drinking 
the waters ; teas and chit-chat in the afternoon ; and a concert 
or ball or theatre, much as one pleased, with which to end the 
day. Sterne was welcomed to Bath by Lord Cunningham of 
the Irish peerage, who invited him to his house and intro- 
duced him to a company of "his fair countrywomen", with 
whom the sentimentalist passed some of the happiest days 
in his life. In describing the household to a London friend, 
Sterne wrote: "There is the charming widow Moor, where, if 
I had not a piece of legal meadow of my own, I should rejoice 

to batten the rest of my days; and the gentle, elegant 

Gore, with her fine form and Grecian face, and whose lot I 
trust it will be to make some man happy, who knows the 

value of a tender heart : Nor shall I forget another widow, 

the interesting Mrs. Vesey, with her vocal and fifty other 
accomplishments. ' ' 

Concerning the first two of these beautiful women over 
from Ireland to set Yorick's heart aflame, our narrative can 
say but little. Mrs. Gore must live, I fear, only for "her 
fine form and Grecian face". With Mrs. Moor, who had a 
house of her own at Bath, Sterne kept up a long correspond- 
ence, but none of their letters, if published, can now be surely 
identified through the dashes. Like Mrs. Vesey, she was 
doubtless a widow only in the sense that she came to Bath 
without her husband. Mrs. Vesey, it is certain, was none 
other than Elizabeth Vesey, the famous "Blue-Stocking", who 
afterwards brought over her husband from Ireland, got him 



340 LAUEENCE STERNE 

into Dr. Johnson 's club, and established for herself a coterie in 
rivalry with Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu's. At this time she had 
to be content with her house at Lucan near Dublin and with 
an occasional season in Bath and London. Her "spirit, wit, 
and vivacity ' ' quickly won Sterne 's heart. ' ' Let me ask you, 
my dearest Mrs. Vesey", he was soon writing to her, "what 

business you had to come here from Ireland or rather, 

what business you have to go back again the deuce take 

you with your musical and other powers could nothing 

serve you but you must turn T. Shandy's head, as if it was 

not turn'd enough already; as for turning my heart, I 

forgive you, as you have been so good as to turn it towards 

so excellent and heavenly an object "* 

The sentimental friendship was never dropped, though 
Mrs. Vesey received a sharp rebuke from the learned and 
rather prudish Mrs. Carter for the intimacy. Sterne sub- 
sequently frequented Mrs. Vesey 's "dear blue room'' in Bol- 
ton Row, and took her to Ranelagh ; and when too ill for that, 
he summoned a chair to convey him to her "warm cabinet", 
that he might listen alone to her "gentle, amiable, elegant 
sentiments ' ', delivered " in a tone of voice that was originally 
intended for a Cherub". On one occasion, when Sterne was 
unable to leave his lodgings and seemed to be in his last 
illness, Mrs. Vesey came over to Bond Street and sat by his 
bedside the whole night, "performing every act of the most 
friendly and pious attention". As he began to mend, she 
came again, says Sterne, "in the form of a pitying angel, 
and made my Tisan for me * * * and played at picquet 
with me, in order to prevent my attempt to talk, as she was 
told it would do me harm. * * * In my life did I never see 

anything so truely graceful as she is, nor had I an idea, 

'till I saw her that grace could be so perfect in all its 

parts, and so suited to all the higher ordinances of the first 
life, from the superintending impulse of the mind". Sterne 
invited Mrs. Vesey to Coxwold, and they must have met by ap- 
pointment at Scarborough two years later, when "the Sylph", 
as she was called, came north to quiet her nerves by change 
of air and water. In return for the compliment, Sterne 
* Morgan Manuscripts. 



YOEKSHIEE AND LONDON 341 

promised to visit her and other friends in Ireland, where he 
had never been since childhood. 

Pursuit of the dear "Blue-Stocking" has carried us for- 
ward two or three years. To return to Bath, Sterne first met 
there Gainsborough, then living in the newly-built Circus, a 
showy amphitheatre of residences on the hill. The painter, 
say those who knew him, detested books, but read Sterne and 
wrote like him.* Sterne sat for his admirer. The portrait 
has never been quite identified ; but a Gainsborough purport- 
ing to be of Sterne hangs in the Peel Park Museum at 
Salford. If really Sterne, it is a highly idealised portrait, 
such as might be painted at a single sitting without much 
study. The figure, drawn at half-length, is scrupulously 
dressed, with short wig, and sleeves and front heavy with 
costly lace. The left hand is concealed, while in the right 
hand, almost buried in ruffles, a book lies open. A dreamy 
face tending to the oblong, with full eyes and full lips, gives 
the impression of soberness, almost of melancholy. The per- 
plexing portrait may be Sterne's; for "Harlequin without 
his mask", as Thackeray once said, "is known to present a 
very sober countenance, and was himself, the story goes, the 
melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see 
Harlequin."! 

Keturning to London before the end of April, Sterne 
"made a large company merry at Lady Lepell's table during 
a whole afternoon", by a comic version of his adventures with 
the Anglo-Irish at Bath. The Lady Lepell at whose table 
Sterne sat was a daughter of the effeminate John, Lord Her- 
vey, so severely satirised by Pope as ' ' that mere white curd of 
ass's milk". At the time of her marriage with Constantine 
Phipps, afterwards Baron Mulgrave of New Ross, Ireland, 
she was, says Walpole, "a fine black girl, but as masculine 
as her father should be". Her birth and her rank easily 
made her house the centre round which gyrated Anglo-Irish 
society. Under the excitement of the occasion, Sterne aban- 
doned himself to his wit, apparently forgetting that Lord 

* William Jackson, The Four Ages, 160 (London, 1798). 

t The Gainsborough portrait is technically described by G. W. Ful- 
cher, Life of Gainsborough, 219 (London, 1856). It was presented to 
the Museum at Salford by Mr. Thomas Agnew. 



342 LAURENCE STERNE 

Cunningham and Mrs. Vesey belonged to the same set. Some 
umbrage was taken at his ridicule of their friends at Bath, 
especially by Lady Barrymore, who told the story. Disturbed 
by the incident, Sterne gracefully apologised for his sallies 
of wit, saying that he himself was born in Ireland and that 
he could never have intended ridicule of his "fair country- 
women". "I did", it was admitted, "talk of them, but as 
they would wish to be talked of, with smiles on my counte- 
nance, praise on my tongue, hilarity in my heart, and the 
goblet in my hand. ' ' 

Never was Sterne more reckless in speech and in conduct 
than this year. Perhaps it would not do to quote from an 
unpublished letter* of his in reply to Mrs. Ferguson of 
Bath, who had enquired of her friends in town whether 
Tristram Shandy was a married man or no. There is really 
no harm in the letter in which Tristram Shandy told the ' ' dear 
lady" that she must answer to her own conscience for the 
question, but we can not speak with Sterne's freedom nowa- 
days. To conclude, Sterne closed the season with an in- 
discretion which has long lain heavily against him. The 
incident has been often related, but with a mistake in time 
and place, and with undue emphasis on the questionable char- 
acter of the woman, slightly disguised in the printed cor- 
respondence as Lady P . Among Sterne's acquaintances 

was Hugh Percy, eldest son of the first Duke of Northum- 
berland, a young man twenty-three years old. He appears 
among the subscribers to Sterne's sermons as Lord Wark- 
worth. After serving as an officer during the last years of 
the war with France, Percy was appointed colonel and aide- 
de-camp to George the Third, and subsequently fought 
bravely in the war with the American colonies, covering, for 
instance, the retreat of the British from Lexington and Con- 
cord. In the summer of 1764, he married Anne, daughter 
of the Earl of Bute, who succeeded Pitt as Prime Minister. 
From the first, the marriage, which finally ended in divorce, 
did not prosper. Lady Percy quarrelled with her mother-in- 
law, the old Duchess of Northumberland, and insisted upon 
inviting her friends to call while Lord Warkworth was away. 

* Morgan Manuscripts. 



YOKKSHIBE AND LONDON 343 

On one occasion, after many compliments doubtless, Lady 
Percy told Sterne that she would be glad to include him 
among her favoured guests. Remembering the invitation on 
an April afternoon while on his way to dine in her neighbour- 
hood with Mr. Cowper of Wigmore Street, he entered the 
Mount Coffee-House, called for a sheet of gilt paper, and 
wrote off a nonsensical letter to Lady Percy, asking if she 
"would be alone at seven " and suffer him "to spend the 
evening with her". She was directed to send her reply to 
Wigmore Street by seven o'clock. "If I hear nothing by 
that time", said the billet-doux, "I shall conclude you are 

better disposed of and shall take a sorry hack, and sorrily 

jogg on to the play Curse on the word. I know nothing 

but sorrow — except this one thing, that I love you (perhaps 
foolishly, but) most sincerely." Though the conduct of Sterne 
and Lady Percy was far from correct, it matters little whether 
they passed the evening together or Sterne took a sorry hack 
to Covent Garden, where Miss Wilford, a beautiful dancer, 
was to make her debut in the regular drama.* 

* The letter to Lady Percy has become one of the most famous 
letters because of Thackeray 's use of it in his lecture on ' ' Sterne and 
Goldsmith" in the English Humourists. In editions of Sterne since 
1780, this letter has usually appeared among those for the last part of 
April, 1767. Thackeray referred to it to show that Sterne was only 
shamming his passion for Mrs. Draper — the Eliza of a series of letters 
in the spring of 1767. But it is now known that Sterne was too ill at 
that time to visit Lady Percy or anyone else. In 1766 he was abroad. 
Hence the only year left for the letter is 1768 or 1765. If he cannot make 
an engagement with Lady Percy, Sterne says that he is going to Miss 
******* ' s benefit. No unmarried actress had a benefit on a Tuesday 
in the spring of 1768 before March 18, the date of Sterne's death. But 
on Tuesday, April 23, 1765, benefits were given to Miss Wright at 
Drury Lane, and to Miss Wilford at Covent Garden. The seven stars 
correspond to the letters in the name of Miss Wilford. — See Genest, 
History of the Stage, V, 69 j 75. 



CHAPTER XVI 

YORKSHIRE AND LONDON CONTINUED 
SERMONS : VOLUMES III AND IV 

MAY— OCTOBEE 1765 

It was the twenty-third of April, as we may figure it out, 
when Sterne wished to pay a visit to Lady Percy, whose ' * eyes 
and lips ' ', he said, ' ' have turned a man into a fool, whom the 
rest of the town is courting as a wit". Two days later the 
Garricks arrived from Paris and went directly to their 
Hampton villa. Sterne at least saw them, hurried through 
his business in town, and hastened home earlier than usual, 
to prepare his sermons for the press in the ensuing Septem- 
ber. At York he stayed some days with Hall-Stevenson, who 
left him "bleeding to death" of a vessel in his lungs. "The 
deuce take these bellows of mine ! ' ' Sterne wrote to the young 
Earl of Effingham, "I must get 'em stopped, or I shall never 
have to persifler Lord Effingham again." The hemorrhage 
which he thus dismissed carelessly, was nevertheless a warn- 
ing that he must keep quieter than last summer, and be con- 
tent to oscillate between York and Coxwold, with no thought 
of Scarborough or Harrogate. 

When first seen in his retirement, he was sitting in the 
summer-house of Shandy Hall, "heart and head" full of his 
sermons. Near him lay a letter from a Mr. "Woodhouse to in- 
form him that he was in love. To draw himself out of the pen- 
sive mood of the sermons, Sterne took up the letter for reply, 
beginning with the value of the passion to a man of his own 
temperament, an excellent commentary, in passing, on his 
infatuation for Lady Percy. "I am glad", said the man of 
large experience, "that you are in love — 'twill cure you at 
least of the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and 
woman — I myself must ever have some dulcinea in my 
head — it harmonises the soul — and in those cases I first 

344 



TOEKSHIEE AND LONDON 345 

endeavour to make the lady believe so, or rather I begin 

first to make myself believe that I am in love but I carry 

on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally 

T 'amour' (say they) 'n'est rien sans sentiment'. 1 ' 

Sterne had just received, it appears, and replied to a 
formal proposal for the hand of his daughter from ' ' a French 
gentleman of fortune in France". The marquis, if we may 
so call him, obtained Sterne's address from Foley's corre- 
spondent at Montauban, and, without the knowledge of Lydia, 
wrote to her father that he was deeply in love with her, 
as a brief prelude to the enquiry : ' ' How much can you give 
her at present and how much at your death. ' ' The substance 
of the parent's amusing reply, Sterne related for the benefit 
of his friend Woodhouse. "Sir", was Sterne's answer, "I 
will give her ten thousand pounds the day of marriage — 

my calculation is as follows she is not eighteen, you are 

sixty-two there goes five thousand pounds then, Sir, 

you at least think her not ugly — she has many accomplish- 
ments, speaks Italian, French, plays upon the guittar, and as 
I fear you play upon no instrument whatever, I think you 
will be happy to take her at my terms, for here finishes the 
account of the ten thousand pounds." 

A letter came, too, from Mrs. Meadows, who had been an 
intimate friend of the family at Toulouse. It was a "kind 
epistle" to enquire after Yorick's health and to inform him 
of her whereabouts since coming back to England. In apology 
for delaying his answer, Sterne told her that so great a mis- 
fortune had recently befallen him as to keep all concerns of 
friendship at a distance: "You must know, that by careless- 
ness of my curate, or his wife, or his maid, or some one 
within his gates, the parsonage-house at Sutton was burnt 
to the ground, with the furniture that belonged to me, and a 
pretty good collection of books; the loss three hundred and 

fifty pounds The poor man with his wife took the wings of 

the next morning, and fled away this has given me real 

vexation, for so much was my pity and esteem for him, that 
as soon as I heard of this disaster, I sent to desire he would 
come and take up his abode with me till another habitation 
was ready to receive him but he was gone and, as I 



346 LAUEENCE STERNE 

am told, through fear of my persecution. Heavens! how 

little did he know of me to suppose I was among the number 

of those wretches that heap misfortune upon misfortune 

and when the load is almost insupportable, still to add to the 

weight! God, who reads my heart, knows it to be true 

that I wish rather to share, than to encrease the burthen of 

the miserable to dry up, instead of adding a single drop 

to the stream of sorrow. As for the dirty trash of this 

world, I regard it not the loss of it does not cost me a 

sigh, for after all, I may say with the Spanish Captain, that I 
am as good a gentleman as the king, only not quite so rich. ,, 
It is interesting to observe here how Sterne's pity and 
humour, pen once in hand, helped him over the hardest rubs 
of fortune. The frightened curate who ran away was the 
Rev. Marmaduke Collier, who had been in charge of Sutton 
since 1760. He was evidently soon induced to come out of 
hiding, for the baptisms, as recorded in the parish registry, 
appear in his hand throughout 1765. But he was re- 
placed the next year by Launcelot Colley, who, after taking 
the parish duties for some months, was duly licensed to the 
cure on October 20, 1766. The recommendation was made by 
Sterne at an annual salary of £38.* 

But to return to the letter to Mrs. Meadows. In recom- 
pense of her favour, Sterne invited her to Coxwold, and 
offered, if she were going abroad again, to escort her on the 
way. ' ' Shall I expect you here ' ', ran the alluring invitation, 
"this summer? 1 much wish that you may make it con- 
venient to gratify me in a visit for a few weeks 1 will 

give you a roast fowl for your dinner, and a clean table-cloth 
every day — and tell you a story by way of desert — in 
the heat of the day we will sit in the shade — and in the 
evening the fairest of all the milk-maids who pass by my 

gate, shall weave a garland for you. If I should not be so 

fortunate, contrive to meet me [in London] the beginning 

of October 1 shall stay a fortnight after, and then seek 

a kindlier climate. This plaguy cough of mine seems to 

gain ground, and will bring me to my grave in spight of me 

but while I have strength to run away from it I will 

* Institutions of the Diocese of York. 



YORKSHIRE AND LONDON 347 
I have been wrestling with it for these twenty years past 



and what with laughter and good spirits, have prevented its 

giving me a fall but my antagonist presses closer than 

ever upon me and I have nothing left on my side but 

another journey abroad A-propos are you for a scheme 

of that sort? if not, perhaps you will accompany me as far 
as Dover, that we may laugh together on the beach, to put 

Neptune in a good humour before I embark God bless 

you, my dear Madam, and believe me ever your's." 

As the time for Sterne's departure on his foreign tour was 
approaching, the recurrent trouble with his lungs took him 
frequently to York for change, and perhaps to consult Dr. 
Dealtry. "I am going to York", he again wrote to Wood- 
house late in the summer, "not to walk by the side of the 
muddy Ouse, but to recruit myself of the most violent spitting 
of blood that ever mortal man experienced; because I had 
rather (in case 'tis ordained so) die there, than in a post- 
chaise on the road." Among his friends in the city whom 
envy still spared him, was Marmaduke Fothergill, to whom 
he used to go for advice in the Sutton period. One day 
Fothergill told him of a droll encounter with an apothecary 
in Coney Street; and Sterne, suppressing names, retold the 
story for the benefit of Mr. Woodhouse: "A sensible friend 
of mine, with whom, not long ago, I spent some hours in con- 
versation, met an apothecary (an acquaintance of ours) 

the latter asked him how he did? Why, ill, very ill — I have 
been with Sterne, who has given me such a dose of Attic salt 

that I am in a fever Attic salt, Sir, Attic salt! I have 

Glauber salt 1 have Epsom salt in my shop, &c. Oh ! I 

suppose 'tis some French salt 1 wonder you would trust 

his report of the medicine, he cares not what he takes 
himself." 

As usual, Sterne was in for the August races, expecting 
to meet by appointment Lord Effingham, and Colonel John 
Blaquiere, afterwards Chief Secretary for Ireland, both of 
whom were most congenial companions. With them doubt- 
less he drove out to the race-course, where occurred an inci- 
dent which connects him agreeably with Elizabeth Graeme, 
a romantic young woman from the colonies. Miss Graeme 



348 LAUEENCE STEENE 

was a daughter of Thomas Graeme, physician and collector 
of customs at Philadelphia, and a granddaughter on her 
mother's side of Sir William Keith, a former governor of 
Pennsylvania. At the outbreak of the Kevolution, she mar- 
ried a young Scotsman of Philadelphia named Ferguson, 
who accepted a commission in the British Army. It was she 
who bore Duche's famous letter to General Washington, urg- 
ing that he persuade congress to rescind "the hasty and ill- 
advised" Declaration of Independence, and that, failing in 
the effort, he negotiate directly for his country at the head 
of the army. Back in 1765, when she went to England 
for her health, Miss Graeme was a clever young woman, 
twenty-five years old, fond of moralising in verse and of 
entering into Platonic friendships. She figures as the 
"Laura fair" in the verses of Nathaniel Evans, the colonial 
poet. In her leisure, she translated Telemaque into English 
heroic verse, and transcribed, it is said, the entire Bible, that 
it might be impressed upon her memory. Of her visit abroad, 
she felt most honoured by her gracious reception at Court 
and by an introduction to Laurence Sterne, which came about 
by chance. With a party of friends she attended the York 
races, where she took, it happened, a seat upon the same stage 
with Sterne. "While bets were making", says the narrative, 
"upon different horses, she selected a small horse that was 
in the rear of the courses as the subject of a trifling wager. 
Upon being asked the reason for doing so, she said, 'the race 
was not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong'. 
Mr. Sterne, who stood near her, was struck with this reply, 
and turning hastily toward her, begged for the honour of an 
acquaintance. They soon became sociable, and a good deal 
of pleasant conversation took place between them, to the 
great entertainment of the surrounding company."* 

All summer Sterne was busy, so far as he was able to 
work at all, with his sermons. He kept his face, as he 
phrased it, turned towards Jerusalem. During the revision 
he must have written many letters asking for subscriptions 
and acknowledging favours ; of which two to Foley have long 

* M. Katherine Jackson, Outlines of the Literary History of Penn- 
sylvania, 96-97 (Lancaster, Pa., 1906). 



YOEKSHIEE AND LONDON 349 

been known; and two others have come to light. One was 
to Lord Effingham to thank him, "as well as the amiable 
comtesse votre chere mere, for the honour of her name" ; while 
the other, never yet published, was addressed to Thomas 
Hesselridge, Esq., of London, a gentleman in the service of 
Sir William Maynard, the fourth Baronet. It ran: — 

.,,, , , ~. "York, July 5. 

"My dear dear Sir ' J 

' ' I made a thousand enquiries after you all this last winter 

and was told I should see you some part of it, in town 

pray how do you do? and how do you go on, in this silly 
world? Have you seen my seven and eight graceless chil- 
dren? but I am doing penance for them, in begetting a 

couple of more ecclesiastick ones which are to stand 

penance (again) in their turns in Sheets about the 

middle of September they will appear in the Shape of 

the third and fourth volumes of Yorick. These you must 
know are to keep up a kind of balance, in my Shandaic 
character, and are push'd into the world for that reason by 
my friends with as splendid and numerous a List of Nobility 
&c — as ever pranced before a book, since subscriptions came 

into fashion 1 should grieve not to have your name 

amongst those of my friends — and in so much good com- 
pany as it has a right to be in so tell me to set it down 

— and if you can — Lord Maynard 's — : — I have no design, 
my dear Hesselridge, upon your purse — 'tis but a crown 
— but I have a design upon the credit [of] Lord Maynard 's 
name — and that of a person I love and esteem so much as 
I do you. If any occasions come in your way of adding three 
or four more to the list, your friendship for me, I know will 
do it. 

" N.B. You must take their crowns — and keep them 

for me till fate does the courtesy to throw me in your way 

This will not be, I fear, this year — for in September, I 

set out Solus for Italy — and shall winter at Rome and 
Naples. L'hyvere a Londres ne vaut pas rien, pour les 
poumones — a cause d'humidite et la fume dont I f aire est 

char gee Let me hear how you do soon and believe me 

ever your devoted and affectionate friend and wellwisher 

"L. Sterne" 



350 LAURENCE STERNE 

If all the letters sent forth from Shandy Hall were as 
gay and courteous as this one, we may easily understand 
their success with the world of fashion. Very graphic was 
the metaphor of the prancing steed, which was also worked 
into letters to Garrick and to Foley, and most likely into all 
the rest. The jest of saying that his sermons were to stand 
in sheets for Tristram Shandy, lay in the custom, still sur- 
viving at York in Sterne's day, of requiring one guilty of a 
grave sin to do penance by standing, with a sheet thrown 
over his head, on the steps of the cathedral. Mr. Hesselridge, 
almost needless to say, forwarded his subscription along with 
Sir William's. The splendid list, when completed, contained 
six hundred and ninety-three names, thus outnumbering the 
subscribers to the sermons of 1760 by a comfortable margin. 
Sterne's Yorkshire neighbours, even his old enemy, Philip 
Harland, were mostly there, as much as to say that they liked 
Yorick the preacher if not Yorick the author of Tristram 
Shandy; and there, too, were hosts of friends among the 
gentry and nobility with whom Sterne had associated in 
London and at watering-places. To count the stars in the 
list would be but to enumerate all the great families of the 
kingdom; while France contributed to the roll of honour 
the names of Diderot, d'Holbach, Crebillon, and Voltaire. 

Sterne was in London with his sermons the first week in 
October, somewhat later than he had at times expected. It 
was then arranged that he should set out at once on his 
journey, and leave their publication to Becket. This is the 
only instance in which Sterne did not superintend in person 
his books through the press. But in this case, his presence 
in London was hardly necessary. The lights were all pricked 
in, and the array of subscribers assured the sale of a large 
edition. On the financial side, Becket was quite willing to 
make advances, so that, including royalties and the bills 
brought up from York, Sterne was able to leave with him 
£600, upon which Panchaud and Foley might draw at sight, 
according as Sterne or his wife should make it expedient. 
Everything was thus settled for a long absence. For good 
reasons Becket delayed publication until the opening of the 
London season. The two volumes, numbered three and four, 



YOEKSHIEE AND LONDON 351 

as they appeared on Tuesday, January 21, 1766,* bore the 
old title for which Sterne had been censured: The Sermons 
of Mr. Yorich, which was followed by a table of contents, the 
old sub-title ' ' Sermons by Laurence Sterne ' ', etc., and ' ' Sub- 
scribers Names". Sterne wrote a preface, but decided upon 
reflection that it would be better to let the sermons speak 
for themselves without apology. Along with their publica- 
tion, a scribbler, who knew that no Shandys were intended 
by the author this year, favoured the public with a spurious 
sequel to my uncle Toby's courtship, which the reviewers 
thought admirable, if not genuine. 

The new volumes contained only twelve sermons, instead 
of sixteen as planned in the summer. Among them were four 
that have been already described, to wit : the sermon at Cox- 
wold on the coronation of George the Third, the charity ser- 
mon at the Foundling Hospital, the portrait of Hezekiah, 
and "The Abuses of Conscience ' ', which had been published 
locally as a pamphlet and afterwards inserted in Tristram 
Shandy. To the last sermon, which closed the instalment, 
Sterne prefixed an advertisement asking pardon for its 
reappearance and for making the public "pay twice actually 
for the same thing". 

"But it was judged", Sterne went on to say, "that some 
might better like it, and others better understand it just as 
it was preached, than with the breaks and interruptions given 
to the sense and argument as it stands there offered to the 
world. 

"It was an Assize Sermon, preached in the Cathedral 
Church at York, and wrote by the same hand with the others 
in these four volumes, and as they are probably the last 
(except the sweepings of the Author's study after his death) 
that will be published, it was thought fit to add it to the 
collection, — where moreover it stands a chance of being read 
by many grave people with a much safer conscience. 

"All the Editor wishes, is, That this may not after all, 
be one of those many abuses of it set forth in what he is now 
going to read." 

* The sermons were entered on this day at Stationers' Hall by 
Beeket for himself and De Hondt. 



352 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Though a few more good sermons remained in manuscript 
at Shandy Hall, the twelve that Sterne picked for publica- 
tion were in his opinion the best. Of the eight about whose 
history we know little or nothing, most were doubtless old 
sermons, recast or stretched out for the closet, while two or 
three, like "The Prodigal Son", may have been prepared 
solely for the press. Again Sterne pleased and edified his 
public as much as six years before. The reviews took him 
up and ran through the volumes with long quotations; and 
for weeks an abridged sermon by Parson Yorick held the 
place of honour in the newspapers. No longer was any inde- 
corum discovered in his assumed name of the king's jester; 
and except for the mild censure of a flight of fancy here and 
there as too free for the pulpit, everybody admired and spoke 
out in praise of the gentle, generous heart of Yorick. 

Strictly orthodox in those rare instances where he touched 
upon points of doctrine, Sterne opened, as was his way, the 
scroll of Biblical characters and adorned them with fresh 
reflections. His readers were treated to a history of religions, 
in which were brought out the advantages of Christianity 
over Greek paganism; they were warned against all manner 
of pride — of birth, wealth, learning, and beauty — as unsocial 
vices, and exhorted to practise the humility of their Master. 
With the beautiful woman, proud of her loveliness, Sterne 
was less severe than with the rest. "And yet", concluded 

the moralist, "when the whole apology is read, it will be 

found at last, that Beauty, like Truth, never is so glorious 

as when it goes the plainest. Simplicity is the great friend 

to nature, and if I would be proud of anything in this silly 
world, it should be of this honest alliance." The old 
harangues against the Church of Rome fell out of the new 
volumes, save for survivals that were allowed to stand, such 
as the sermon on conscience, and the definition of Popery, 
before quoted, as "a pecuniary system, well contrived to 
operate upon men's passions and weakness, whilst their 
pockets are o 'picking". In place of Roman Catholics, the 
Methodists came in for occasional censure on account of their 
spiritual pride — their professed illuminations and extra- 
ordinary experiences, which were described as merely me- 



YOBKSHIEE AND LONDON 353 

chanical disturbances of disordered understandings. As 
in his first volumes, Sterne sometimes went to Hall or to 
Tillotson for a start, but all was modernised to the delecta- 
tion of his audience. 

It was just this power to depict as modern types striking 
characters in Scripture, accompanied with the author's own 
personal remarks and opinions, that makes Sterne's sermons 
still readable. Take for instance his Shimei. It is related 
that David, after his son Absalom rose against him, fled 
from Jerusalem for safety. While he was passing by Mount 
Olivet, Shimei, of the house of Saul, came forth and cursed 
David; "and threw stones and cast dust at him". When 
Absalom was vanquished and David returned to Jerusalem 
in peace, Shimei was the first man to greet him. Sterne, 
well knowing that nobody cared anything about the blood- 
feud existing between the Benjamite and Israel, which 
explains in a clause the conduct of Shimei, easily modified 
the story so as to make out of David's railer a mean and 
abject time-server, such as he had seen with his own eyes. 

"0 Shimei!" the preacher exclaimed after relating his 
history, "would to heaven when thou wast slain, that all thy 
family had been slain with thee; and not one of thy resem- 
blance left! but ye have multiplied exceedingly and replen- 
ished the earth; and if I prophecy rightly — ye will in the 

end subdue it. There is not a character in the world 

which has so bad an influence upon the affairs of it, as this 
of Shimei: * * * Oh! it infests the court — the camp — 

the cabinet — it infests the church go where you will 

in every quarter, in every profession, you see a Shimei fol- 
lowing the wheels of the fortunate through thick mire and 
clay. * * * Shimei is the barometer of every man's fortune; 
marks the rise and fall of it, with all the variations from 
scorching hot to freezing cold upon his countenance, that 

the smile will admit of. Is a cloud upon thy affairs? — 

see — it hangs over Shimei 's brow Hast thou been spoken 

for to the king or the captain of the host without success? 
look not into the court-kalendar — the vacancy is fill'd 

up in Shimei 's face Art thou in debt? tho' not to 

23 



354 LAURENCE STERNE 

Shimei — no matter — the worst officer of the law shall not be 
more insolent.' ' 

In a similar way Jacob became under Sterne's hand the 
type of thousands who lament, when they see the end of life 
approaching, that their days have been few and evil. Most 
of the patriarch's misfortunes were shown, with much 
ingenuity, to have resulted from mistaken views on the man- 
agement of a family, from a " parental partiality or paren- 
tal injustice", as common in England as it ever was in the 
East. There were several hard places in Jacob's career to 
slip over on this theory, but Sterne brushed away all obsta- 
cles. It is true, he admitted in a most difficult analogy, that 
no young man could be tricked now-a-days into marrying a 
Leah, instead of a Rachel, in just the way that Laban tricked 
Jacob. "But the moral of it is still good; and the abuse 
with the same complaint of Jacob's upon it, will ever be 
repeated, so long as art and artifice are so busy as they are 
in these affairs. Listen, I pray you, to the stories of the 

disappointed in marriage: collect all their complaints: 

hear their mutual reproaches; upon what fatal hinge do 

the greatest part of them turn? 'They were mistaken in 

the person.' Some disguise either of body or mind is seen 

through in the first domestic scuffle; some fair ornament 

— perhaps the very one which won the heart — -the orna- 
ment of a meek and quiet spirit, falls off; It is not the 

Rachel for whom I have served, Why hast thou then 

beguiled me? * * * When the night is passed, 'twill ever be 
the same story, And it came to pass, behold it was Leah." 

For the ills that befell Jacob at his marriage and before 
and after it, Sterne expressed pity ; but it was the pity he felt 
for all "splenetic and morose souls" who do not take life as 
they find it. "If there is any evil", he said, "in this world, 

'tis sorrow and heaviness of heart. The loss of goods, — 

of health, — of coronets and mitres, are only evil, as they 

occasion sorrow ; take that out — the rest is fancy, and 

dwelleth only in the head of man." And as for himself, 
though sickness and death pressed upon him, his prayer had 
ever been : 

"Grant me, gracious God! to go chear fully on, the road 



YORKSHIRE AND LONDON 355 

which thou hast marked out; 1 wish it neither more wide 

or more smooth: continue the light of this dim taper 

thou hast put into my hands: 1 will kneel upon the 

ground seven times a day, to seek the best track I can with it 

and having done that, I will trust myself and the issue 

of my journey to thee, who art the fountain of joy, and 

will sing songs of comfort as I go along." 

Very curious was Sterne's analysis of the character of 
Felix, who, though convinced of Paul's innocence, would 
nevertheless not release him because disappointed of a bribe. 
Sterne quickly hit upon the Roman governor's ruling passion 
of avarice, but elaborated and explained it after an entirely 
new fashion. Paul's well-known saying that the love of 
money is the root of all evil, was flatly contradicted. Shift- 
ing the point of view, Sterne held that "the love of money is 
only a subordinate and ministerial passion, exercised for the 
support of some other vices; and 'tis generally found, when 
there is either ambition, prodigality, or lust, to be fed by it, 
that it then rages with the least mercy and discretion; in 
which cases, strictly speaking, it is not the root of other evils, 

but other evils are the root of it". And so it was in 

Felix's case. To pass by ambition, Sterne expressed surprise 
that none of the commentators had fully weighed the in- 
fluence upon the Roman procurator of his mistress Drusilla, 
who "had left the Jew her husband, and without any pre- 
tence in their law to justify a divorce, had given herself up 
without ceremony to Felix, * * * a character, which might 
have figured very well even in our own times". Drusilla, 
Sterne would suggest, feeling her guilt, instigated Felix 
against Paul, so that it was well the Apostle suffered no more, 
since "two such violent enemies as lust and avarice were 
combined against him". 

More curious still was the sermon on "The Levite and 
his Concubine", which the Monthly Review thought wore 
"too gay an aspect" for the pulpit. The sermon was prob- 
ably never preached ; and yet it contained nothing that could 
have disturbed the eighteenth century. At the outset, Sterne 
was very careful to make clear that in the Jewish economics 
the concubine was essentially a wife; that concubinage was 



356 LAUKENCE STERNE 

practised by Solomon, who however rather abused his privi- 
leges under the law; and that, if the Levite needed any 
further justification for his one concubine, it should be 
remembered that there was no king in Israel at the time. 
So much, declared the preacher, might be said for the Levite, 
if one looked for explanations; but for himself he was con- 
tent to rest the case with nature: 

"For notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in many 
of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things 
said upon the sweets of retirement, &c. . . . yet still, 'it is 
not good for man to be alone'. * * * In the midst of the 
loudest vauntings of philosophy, Nature will have her yearn- 
ings for society and friendship. * * * Let the torpid Monk 

seek heaven comfortless and alone God speed him ! For 

my own part, I fear, I should never so find the way : let me 
be wise and religious — but let me be Man: wherever thy 
Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to get 

to thee give me some companion in my journey, be it 

only to remark to, How our shadows lengthen as the sun 
goes down; to whom I may say, How fresh is the face of 
nature ! How sweet the flowers of the field ! How delicious 
are these fruits!" 

With good taste, Sterne stopped short of the horrible 
catastrophe as related in Scripture, and in Bishop Hall, who 
was followed in places very closely; and pieced out his dis- 
course with a few remarks on "the rash censurers of the 
world", who set up a "trade upon the broken stock of other 
people's failings, perhaps their misfortunes". "Cer- 
tainly there is a difference", he told crabbed satirists finely 
with reference to his own art, "between Bitterness and Salt- 
ness, — that is, — between the malignity and the festivity 

of wit, the one is a mere quickness of apprehension, void 

of humanity, — and is a talent of the devil; the other comes 
from the Father of spirits, so pure and abstracted from per- 
sons, that willingly it hurts no man : or if it touches upon an 
indecorum, 'tis with that dexterity of true genius, which 
enables him rather to give a new colour to the absurdity, and 

let it pass. He may smile at the shape of the obelisk 

raised to another's fame, but the malignant wit will level 



YORKSHIRE AND LONDON 357 

it at once with the ground, and build his own upon the 
ruins of it." 

And finally we have Sterne where everybody should like 
to see him — in a sermon on the Prodigal Son, a theme which 
invited him to give loose rein to all the tender emotions in 
the train of pity and mercy, up to the climax where the 
preacher declared that the joy and riot of the kindly affec- 
tions was but "another name for religion". Without re- 
straint, Sterne let his fancy play with the parable, reviving, 
with all sorts of imaginary details, the remonstrance of the 
father against the rash enterprise of his son, the spendthrift's 
parting with his father and elder brother by the side of 
"camels and asses loaden with his substance", his varied life 
in many lands, until a mighty famine drove him back to his 
father's roof, and the fatted calf was killed, and the pavil- 
lion was lighted up for the dance and wild festivity. Of 
course, Sterne's graphic and pathetic pictures, flowing on in 
a well-ordered series, had little warrant in the brief narrative 
of St. Luke; but as literature the sermon was all the better 
for that. It was perhaps all the better, too, for his weaken- 
ing, almost losing, the moral of the parable by the zest with 
which he related the prodigal's experiences at Ninevah and 
Babylon. The young man, his substance all wasted, has 
decided to return to his father and beg for forgiveness ; and 
thereon says the preacher : 

"Alas! How shall he tell his story? Ye who have trod 
this round, tell me in what words he shall give in to his 

father, the sad Items of his extravagance and folly? The 

feasts and banquets which he gave to whole cities in the 

east, the costs of Asiatick rarities, and of Asiatick 

cooks to dress them the expences of singing men and sing- 
ing women, the flute, the harp, the sackbut, and of all 

kinds of musick the dress of the Persian courts, how 

magnificent! their slaves, how numerous! their chariots, 

their horses, their palaces, their furniture, what immense 
sums they had devoured! what expectations from strang- 
ers of condition! what exactions! How shall the youth 

make his father comprehend, that he was cheated at Damascus 
by one of the best men in the world ; that he had lent a 



358 LAUEENCE STERNE 

part of his substance to a friend at Nineveh, who had fled 

off with it to the Ganges; that a whore of Babylon had 

swallowed his best pearl, and anointed the whole city with 

his balm of Gilead; that he had been sold by a man of 

honour for twenty shekels of silver, to a worker in graven 

images; that the images he had purchased had profited 

him nothing; that they could not be transported across 

the wilderness, and had been burnt with fire at Shusan; 

that the apes and peacocks, which he had sent for from 
Tharsis, lay dead upon his hands ; and that the mummies had 
not been dead ] ong enough, which had been brought him 

out of Egypt: that all had gone wrong since the day he 

forsook his father's house." 

No one except Sterne could have imagined those romantic 
details of a spendthrift; or, had he done so, have ventured 
to put them into a sermon. But a greater surprise follows. 
Having brought the prodigal home and set the wine flowing, 
the man of the world proceeded to modernise the parable by 
offering "some reflections upon that fatal passion which led 

him, and so many thousands after the example, to gather 

all he had together, and take his journey into a far country" 

some observations, in short, upon the grand tour for 

which he himself was preparing. The desire for travelling 
on the Continent, the preacher held, was in no way bad, con- 
sidered by itself. "Order it rightly, the advantages are 
worth the pursuit; the chief of which are — to learn the 
languages, the laws and customs, and understand the govern- 
ment and interest of other nations, — to acquire an urbanity 
and confidence of behaviour, and fit the mind more easily 

for conversation and discourse; to take us out of the 

company of our aunts and grandmothers, and from the 
track of nursery mistakes; and by shewing us new objects, 
or old ones in new lights, to reform our judgments." 

But few or none, said Sterne, of the young Englishmen 
who swarm the capitals of Europe bring back any part of 
this cargo. If they go out alone, "without carte, — without 

compass" they escape well if they return only as naked 

as when they left home. If you place your son in charge of 
a scholar to act as bear-leader, "the upshot will be generally 



YORKSHIRE AND LONDON 359 

* * * that the unhappy youth will have the tutor to carry, 
— and not the tutor to carry him". You may choose for 
your son, not a scholar read in Greek and Latin, but a man 
"who knows the world, * * * who has been employed on 
such services, and thrice made the tour of Europe, with suc- 
cess, that is, without breaking his own, or his pupil's 

neck". From such a guide, the young man "will learn the 
amount to a halfpenny, of every stage from Calais to Rome; 

he will be carried to the best inns, instructed where 

there is the best wine, and sup a livre cheaper, than if the 
youth had been left to make the tour and the bargain him- 
self. Look at our governor! I beseech you: see, he is 

an inch taller as he relates the advantages. And here 

endeth his pride his knowledge, and his use". 

Perhaps a fond father imagines that the stripling will 
be taken up everywhere he goes by distinguished natives of 
the country to whom he may carry letters of recommenda- 
tion. Him Sterne would disillusion by observing that "com- 
pany which is really good, is very rare and very shy"; 

and as for letters to eminent men, they will obtain a courteous 
first reception but nothing more. "Conversation", it should 
be understood, " is a traffick ; and if you enter into it, without 
some stock of knowledge, to balance the account perpetually 

betwixt you, the trade drops at once. * * * There is 

nothing to be extracted from the conversation of young 

itinerants, worth the trouble of their bad language, or 

the interruption of their visits." Cut off from his intel- 
lectual superiors, "the disappointed youth seeks an easier 
society ; and as bad company is always ready, and ever lying 

in wait, the career is soon finished ; and the poor prodigal 

returns the same object of pity, with the prodigal in the 
Gospel." 

So ended, by a violent reversal to the parable, the 
strangest of all Yorick's sermons, composed, very likely, not 
long before his departure for Italy. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE TOUR OF ITALY 
OCTOBER 1765— MAY 1766 

When the sermons came out, Sterne was at Rome, mid- 
way on the grand tour which has been immortalised in 
A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Con- 
sidered as an actual record of the expedition, the famous 
book has, however, for the biographer very great perplexities, 
at first sight almost desperate, inasmuch as Yorick com- 
bined with the observations of this year characters and inci- 
dents of his first sojourn in France, and further mingled with 
both sets anecdotes heard and read by the way and else- 
where, as if they had really fallen within his own personal 
experience. Two distinct tours and some fiction were thus 
completely fused in one beautiful narrative. We may never- 
theless eliminate much of the fiction and most of the first 
tour; and then, with the aid of various letters, retell 
the story of Sterne's last travels on the Continent. If 
the narrative, thus cut down and pieced out, loses much of 
its literary charm, there will emerge in its place a new 
biographical interest. Monsieur Dessein, La Fleur, and 
many names disguised under initials and stars will turn out 
to be real persons whom Sterne met and associated witl} on 
the journey, though no one should insist too far upon a literal 
interpretation of the incidents which fancy at times wove 
about them.* 

Perhaps we should be reminded at the outset that the 
Yorick who made the tour of Italy, was in all externals quite 
different from the Yorick whom we first saw as the rural 
parson cultivating his glebe and other lands. So careless 

* In 1824 John Poole the dramatist went over the Sterne route from 
Calais to Paris, identifying Sterne's stopping-places and gathering up 
local traditions. See his two articles in the London Magazine for 1825. 
pp. 38-46 and 387-94. 

360 



THE TOUR OF ITALY 361 

and slovenly was he then in appearance as to attract the 
attention of boys when he came into York and shuffled 
through the streets. Referring to those days, he called him- 
self "a lousy prebendary". Five years of London and Paris 
made out of him a Chesterfield. He grew scrupulous, though 
not extravagant, in dress; and no man of the age was more 
at ease in society — more courteous and more urbane. On 
his first coming to London, Reynolds painted him most 
fittingly in the clerical gown which he wore as Vicar of 
Sutton. In Carmontelle and Gainsborough he appeared in 
the costume of an aristocrat. And yet Yorick, possessing 
good taste, never assumed the fashionable colours of the 
period, but chose instead the equally fashionable complete 
black, with conspicuous white lace ruffles, neat and dignified, 
becoming a man of his age and profession as well as a man 
of the world. So, remembering what he once was, it is rather 
amusing to find Sterne writing to Foley from London on the 
seventh of October to request him to order from Madame 
Requiere, against his reaching Paris in seven days, il une 
peruque a bourse, au mieux — c'est-d-dire — une la plus extra- 
ordinaire — la plus jolie — la plus gentille", for you know, 
he concluded, "j'ai I'honneur d'etre grand critique — et bien 
difficile encore dans les affaires de peruques". 

Sure of his Parisian wig, Sterne next packed "half a 
dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches" in his port- 
manteau, and took a place in the Dover stage, if his plans did 
not go wrong, on the morning of October 9, 1765. The fol- 
lowing day he embarked on the nine-o'clock packet for Calais, 
and five or six hours later he was refreshing himself at his 
inn on fricasseed chicken and burgundy. The inn where he 
rested after the voyage was not the old Lyon d 'Argent — or 
the Silver Lion, as the English called it — where his wife and 
daughter lodged a night, and whose master — Monsieur Grand- 
sire — Sterne set down, after one experience with him, as "a 
Turk in grain"; it was the Hotel d ' Angleterre, recently 
established in "the principal street" of Calais by Monsieur 
Dessein. The host, it is said, had been a favourite waiter 
with the English passing through Calais, most likely at the 
Silver Lion, and assumed his peculiar name from a compli- 



362 LAUEENCE STEENE 

ment of one of them, who remarked: "II a du dessein, ce 
gaillard la." This shrewd gargon, taking advantage of his 
master's unpopularity, opened a house of his own, to which 
most tourists, furious at Monsieur Grandsire's overcharges,* 
hastened to transfer their patronage. "No hotel in France", 
remarked Philip Thicknesse, the eccentric traveller, who 
spent a day there in 1767, "is equal to that from which I 
now write. Monsieur Dessein knows the gout of both nations 
and blends them with propriety ; and he has the advantage of 
a palace as it were, to do it in."f Monsieur Dessein was 
rather odd in appearance — though Sterne scarcely noticed 
it, — as he had but one eye and wore a long wig with curls 
and tail, at a time when shorter wigs were the fashion. He 
was most civil and affable in bearing, though sharp in his 
charges and at a bargain. It was his custom to greet an 
innocent arrival from Dover with a bow and a side-look 
resembling the squint of a cock as he eyes a barley-corn, and 
then to ask Monsieur whether he had any English gold to 
exchange for French coin. These transactions were very 
profitable, for Monsieur Dessein knew how to make ten sous 
on every guinea. J But if he cheated his guests, it was done 
so pleasantly that they felt no resentment. 

Burned out in 1770, Dessein built anew, adding a theatre, 
and fitted up a room in honour of his famous guest, hanging 
over the mantel a mezzotint of Reynolds's Monsieur Sterne 
d'Yorick, and painting on the outside of the door in large 
characters Sterne 's Chamber. There numberless English- 
men down to Thackeray slept, in the fancy that they were 
lying in the very place where Sterne once stretched his lean 
shanks. At the new inn Foote laid the scene of his Trip to 
Calais, containing a caricature of the master under the name 
of Monsieur Tromfort. There, too, stayed Frederic Rey- 
nolds, another dramatist, for a day or two in 1782, while the 
merry host was still alive ; and asking him whether he remem- 

* J. Wilkes to Humphrey Cotes, Dee. 12, 1764: Correspondence of 
Wilkes, edited by J. Almon, II, 102-3 (London, 1805). 

t Letter dated August 10, 1767: Thicknesse, Useful Hints to those 
who make the Tour of France, 278-81 (London, 1768). 

t Thicknesse, A Year's Journey through France and Spain, I, 9-30 

(London, 1778). 



THE TOUE OF ITALY 363 

bered Monsieur Sterne, received the interesting reply: 
" 'Your countryman, Monsieur Sterne, von great, von vary 
great man, and he carry me vid him to posterity. He gain 
moche money by his Journey of Sentiment — mais moi — I 
— make more through de means of dat, then he, by all his 

ouvrages reunies Ha, ha! ? Then, as if in imitation of 

Sterne, he laid his forefinger on my breast, and said in a 
voice lowered almost to a whisper, 'Qu'en pensez vousV "* 
To say truth, the mere mention of Monsieur Dessein in the 
Sentimental Journey made him ''one of the richest men in 
Calais". 

Sterne halted at Dessein 's for no more than two or three 
hours, but time enough to set going a series of sweet and 
pleasurable emotions in himself and others, which was his 
premeditated aim in this tour. No churches, no monuments, 
no art galleries were to be visited, or even looked at if it 
could be helped ; at least, they were nowhere to intrude upon 
a pleasant commerce with men and women, with strangers 
as well as with old friends whom he might chance to meet on 
the way to Italy. "I conceive", he said in explaining the 
difference between his and all other journeys, "every fair 
being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the 
original drawings, and loose sketches hung up in it, than the 
transfiguration of Raphael itself." " 'Tis a quiet journey", 
he concluded exquisitely, "of the heart in pursuit of 
Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which 

make us love each other and the world, better than we 

do." 

Sterne had not long to wait for his first emotional 
experience. Close by Dessein 's was a convent of Franciscan 
friars — monks Sterne called them — one of whom was accus- 
tomed to attend all visitors at the inn and to do the duties 
of the quete for his order. Mrs. Thrale saw him in 1775, 
while at Calais with her husband and Dr. Johnson ; and sub- 
sequently, when she had become Mrs. Piozzi, introduced him 
into her Journey through France as Father Felix, who, after 
a career in the army, retired in old age to the convent for 

* Life and Times of Frederic Reynolds, written by himself, I, 179- 
81 (London, 1826). 



364 LAURENCE STERNE 

quiet and study. On hearing the story of his varied life, 
Dr. Johnson declared "that so complete a character could 
scarcely be found in romance". Sterne had drunk the last 
of his burgundy in a health to the King of France, and his 
arteries were all beating cheerily together under its influence, 
when Father Felix, or his earlier counterpart, entered and 
asked an alms for his convent. "It was one of those heads", 
Sterne saw at a glance, "which Guido has often painted — 
mild, pale — penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas 
of fat contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth 
it look'd forwards; but look'd, as if it look'd at some- 
thing beyond this world." Advancing into the room three 
paces, the thin and aged friar "stood still; and laying his 
left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which 

he journey 'd being in his right) when I got close up to 

him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants 
of his convent, and the poverty of his order — and did it 
with so simple a grace — and such an air of deprecation 
was there in the whole cast of his look and figure — I was 
bewitch 'd not to have been struck with it". Notwithstand- 
ing the supplicant's persuasive words and attitude, Sterne 
denied the alms for the effect of the denial upon his own and 
the friar 's heart, as seen or felt in the blood coursing through 
their cheeks; and then for the same reason he begged the 
friar's pardon, and exchanged snuff-boxes with him, while 
watching "the stream of good feeling" gush from the mendi- 
cant's eyes. Never before had Sterne known, he averred, 
how sweet was a gentle contention ending in mutual good will. 
With Monsieur Dessein, Sterne then strolled out to his 
remise, or magazine of chaises, to purchase one for the tour of 
Italy. As they walked along, each bent upon overreaching the 
other in the bargain, Sterne eyed his host askance, thinking 
him one moment a Jew and then a Turk ; but while he was si- 
lently ' ' wishing him to the devil ' ', he encountered a beautiful 
woman, Madam de L * * * , who had just come in from 
Brussels on her way to Paris ; and at once all the base and un- 
gentle passions gave place to pity for the distress which he read 
in her look and bearing. "It was a face of about six and 
twenty — of a clear transparent brown, simply set off without 



THE TOUR OF ITALY 365 

rouge or powder it was not critically handsome, but there 

was that in it, which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached 

me much more to it it was interesting; I fancied it wore 

the characters of a widow 'd look, and in that state of its 
declension, which had passed the two first paroxysms of sor- 
row, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss 

but a thousand other distresses might have traced the 

same lines." The fresh train of emotions, as Sterne took the 
hand of the unhappy Fleming by the door of the remise or sat 
with her alone in one of Monsieur Dessein 's chaises, was broken 
off by the arrival of the count, her brother. What name was 
borne by the sentimental stranger who crossed Sterne's path 
at Calais, matters little, but the curious filled out the stars 
into the Marquise de Lamberti. In bidding her adieu, Yorick 
was suffered to kiss her gloved hand twice; whereupon his 
heart so melted within him that he no longer recked of being 
cheated by Monsieur Dessein. With no word of protest, he 
paid the Turk twelve guineas for an old chaise, and ordered 
post-horses directly. 

That evening Sterne probably went on to Boulogne; and 
thence to Montreuil in the rain, where he lay the next night 
at the old Hotel de la Cour de France, kept by Monsieur 
Varennes. At this inn Sterne was again attended by Jana- 
tone, la belle fille de chambre, whom he had seen knitting 
her stocking on his first journey. In the interval she had 
grown more coquettish under the flatteries of English trav- 
ellers, Sterne thought, to her harm. Was it Janatone, one 
wonders, or her successor, whom Mrs. Piozzi found the only 
interesting object at Montreuil? The girl, still handsome, 
complained to Mrs. Piozzi of the behaviour of the lady's 
avant-courier. il ll parle sur le haut ton. mademoiselle' " ', 
apologised Mrs. Piozzi, "mais il a le coeur bon." "Ouida", 
retorted the smart fille de chambre, i( mais c'est le ton qui 
fait le chanson."* 

On the road to Montreuil, Sterne came near losing his 
portmanteau, which fell off twice into the mud and took him 

* Hester Lynch Piozzi, Observations and Be flections made in the 
Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany (London, 
1779). For Calais and Montreuil, see I, 1-9. 



366 LAUEENCE STEENE 

out in the rain to tie it on. As a precaution against further 
mishaps, Monsieur Varennes advised him to take a valet, who 
would protect him against careless postillions, as well as shave 
him, dress his wig, and wait upon him at table. If the Eng- 
lish gentleman wished such a servant, said the host, no one 
could suit him better than La Fleur, who was beloved by 
everybody in Montreuil. At that moment La Fleur, who had 
been standing at the door breathless with expectation, stepped 
into the room; and Sterne put him through an examination 
in the valet 's art. La Fleur had been, he told his prospective 
master, a drummer-boy in the army; but finding that "the 
honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as 
it open'd no further track of glory ", he retired li a ses 
terres"; that is, with the varnish off, he had deserted and fled 
to Montreuil in disguise, where he was living as best he could, 
by performing small services for guests at the Hotel de 
France. "He could make spatterdashes", it was brought out 
in the enquiry, "and play a little upon the fiddle"; while 
the host put in a word to say that the lad was trustworthy 
and even-tempered, — if he had a fault, it was that he was 
always in love with one maiden or another. No further 
recommendation was necessary to the sentimental traveller, 
who immediately engaged La Fleur for the whole tour of 
Italy. "He was", said Sterne in remembrance, "a faithful, 
affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a 
philosopher ; and notwithstanding his talents of drum-beating 
and spatterdash-making, which, though very good in them- 
selves, happened to be of no great service to me, yet was I 
hourly recompensed by the festivity of his temper it sup- 
plied all defects 1 had a constant resource in his looks, 

in all difficulties and distresses of my own 1 was going to 

have added, of his too ; but La Fleur was out of the reach of 
every thing; for whether it was hunger or thirst, or cold or 
nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck 
La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in 

his physiognomy to point them out by he was eternally 

the same." 

That evening, as Sterne ate his supper, with his own valet 
behind his chair, he felt as happy as a monarch in his good 



THE TOUE OF ITALY 367 

fortune. The next morning La Fleur was placed in command 
of all details of the journey. He ordered his master's chaise, 
horses, and postillion to the door; and standing in his great 
jack-boots before the inn, took a tender leave of half a dozen 
girls, for all of whom he promised to bring pardons from 
Kome. Sterne passed out to his chaise through a long line 
of urbane beggars, among whom he distributed sous in return 
for their blessings ; the postillion cracked his whip ; La Fleur 
mounted a bidet and shot forward as avant-courier. Nothing 
happened until they were approaching Nampont, where 
La Fleur 's horse shied at a dead ass in the road, cast his 
rider, and scampered back home. Whereupon Sterne took 
his valet into the chaise along with him, and they jogged 
on to Amiens for the night. There they overtook Madame 
de L * * * and her brother, who put up, however, at another 
inn. It may be that the lady, as says the Sentimental Jour- 
ney, sent over to Sterne a letter of introduction to her friend 
Madame de E * * * of Paris; and that he, perplexed in his 
French, repaid the courtesy by adapting one of La Fleur 's 
old love letters to a suitable reply. In two days more, over 
which hangs silence, Sterne was again in Paris. 

If the Sentimental Journey points true, Sterne took lodg- 
ings at the Hotel de Modene, number 14 Kue Jacob,* then a 
pretty street, in the Faubourg St. Germain, with residences, 
as the imagination may still restore them, set back from the 
street and built around courts. On the second floor was 
his room, furnished with bureau and writing-table, and hav- 
ing bed and windows bright with crimson curtains. This 
dainty apartment Sterne chose for a scene with Madame 
de R * * * 's "fair fille de chambre", who came with an 
enquiry from her mistress; and for another scene with the 
grisette who sold him "a pair of ruffles" from her box of 
laces. It was there, too, that La Fleur appeared on a Sunday 
morning, dressed, to the surprise of his master, in a scarlet 
livery, which he had purchased at a second-hand shop in the 
Rue de la Vieille Friperie for four louis d'or, the first instal- 
ment of his wages; and there Sterne sat the rest of the day 
translating a story for the Sentimental Journey out of the 

* Notes and Queries, seventh series, IX, 366. 



368 LAUEENCE STEENE 

crabbed French of Rabelais 's time. In a long passage below, 
opening upon the court-yard, hung the cage of an impris- 
oned starling, taught to cry with the plaintive voice of a 

child: "I can't get out 1 can't get out." Hearing the 

sad notes one day as he was going down stairs, Sterne re- 
turned directly to his room, he says, and leaning his head 
over the little table, imagined and wrote out the sketch of the 
"pale and feverish" captive wasting away in a dungeon of 
the Bastille. 

The day after his arrival, if we may still go on with the 
Sentimental Journey, Sterne procured his wig and dressed 
himself to call upon Madam de R * * * , to whom he bore a 
letter from the brown lady that he had exchanged tender 
courtesies with at Calais. It was but a short walk to her 
hotel round the corner in the handsome Rue des Saints 
Peres. But the day was so far advanced before the barber 
and La Fleur had done with him, that he changed his mind 
and decided to visit the Comedie Italienne, popularly called 
the Opera Comique, across the river in the Rue Mauconseil. 
The old quarter of the city where stood his hotel, was then, 
as it is now, a network of streets so very perplexing that it 
was necessary for him to enquire his way. Strolling along the 
Rue Jacob and its continuation in the Rue du Colombier, "in 
search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an 
interruption", he saw, as he was about to pass the door of a 
glove-shop, a grisette of uncommon beauty, sitting in the 
rear and making a pair of ruffles. He stepped in and pur- 
chased two pairs of gloves. During the transaction, his 
fingers fell upon the grisette 's wrist, that he might feel the 
pulse of one of the fairest and best-tempered beings that he 
had ever met with in his sentimental wanderings. 

"I had counted twenty pulsations", as Sterne relates the 
adventure, ' ' and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when 
her husband coming unexpected from a back parlour into the 

shop, put me a little out of my reckoning. 'Twas nobody 

but her husband, she said so I began a fresh score 

Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he pass'd by us, as to give 

himself the trouble of feeling my pulse The husband took 

off his hat, and making me a bow, said, I did him too much 



THE TOUE OF ITALY 369 

honour and having said that, he put on his hat and 

walk'd out." 

Poor Yorick was utterly overcome by the grisette's quick 
black eyes, which shot through long and silken eyelashes into 
his very heart and reins. He nevertheless went on, under the 
guidance of a lad from the glove-shop, to the Pont-Neuf, 
whence the route was clear to the Rue Mauconseil. At the 
play, his heart was disturbed by the selfishness of a "tall 
corpulent German near seven feet high", standing in the 
parterre, who persisted in keeping in front of a dwarf, and 
so shutting off for the little fellow all view of the stage. 
Sterne's plaudits were not for the actors, but for a sentinel 
who thrust the German back with his musket and placed the 
dwarf before him. "This is noble", exclaimed Sterne to a 
French officer in the same box with him, and clapped his 
hands together. After the play, he stopped a few minutes 
in the "long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Com- 
ique into a narrow street", to watch the behaviour of two 
tall and lean ladies, who, while waiting for their carriage, 
were wheedled out of two twelve-sous pieces by a beggar 
proficient in the art of that flattery which rules the world. 
On the way back to his hotel, he lost his way again, as well he 
might, after crossing the Pont-Neuf and reaching the Quai 
de Conti; but by chance he met Madame R * * * 's fille de 
chambre, who walked along with him to the Rue de Guene- 
gaud, and bidding him adieu there, directed him to the 
Hotel de Modene, where La Pleur was waiting to put his 
master to bed. 

These incidents, related baldly without the author's em- 
bellishments, seem very trivial indeed ; but they show Sterne 
clearly in lights which have hitherto only partially shone 
upon him. Human nature among all classes intensely inter- 
ested him. He was as eager to learn what was going on in the 
heart and head of a grisette who kept her husband's shop, 
or of a dwarf in distress at the theatre, or tumbling into a 
gutter, as he was to divine the brilliant men and women 
who frequented the salons. If we could know, we should 
probably find that the evening at the Opera Comique 
was but typical of many walks alone through the streets of 

24 



370 LAURENCE STERNE 

Paris in quest of fresh emotions. But except in so far as we 
have cautiously employed it, the Sentimental Journey can 
not be trusted as a guide for Sterne in Paris at this time. 
French gentlemen with whom he had previously associated 
and whom he brings upon the scene in his narrative, were 
mostly away on their estates in the country. The Court was 
still at Fontainebleau ; and Hume, as charge d'affaires, was 
there too. With the Court were likely also the Due de 
Choiseul and the Comte de Bissy, whom Sterne represents 
himself as going out to see at Versailles. All this part of the 
Sentimental Journey was based upon Sterne's first reception 
in Paris three years before ; while the hint of an excursion to 
Rennes to witness the Marquis d'E * * * * reclaim his 
sword before the assembled states of Brittany, is pure fiction. 
It was a touching story which Sterne heard or read of some- 
where, and related because it fitted into his emotional scheme. 
Paris was this year only his stopping-place for not above ten 
days on the route to Italy. Arrangements had to be made 
with his bankers for remittances and for sending on his letters 
from home. In these transactions Foley, who was likely out 
of town, gave place to Panchaud, the other member of the 
firm, for whom and his unmarried sister Sterne expressed 
great esteem. By good luck Diderot and Baron d'Holbach 
were close by at Grandval, if not in the city; and they 
received Sterne into the old intimacy. 

Amid the dearth of fashionable society, Sterne found 
amusement not only in sentimental pilgrimages among the 
tradespeople, but in the English colony which was beginning 
to gather for the winter. Wilkes, who had varied his exile 
by a visit to Italy, had just returned to Paris and settled 
near Sterne at the Hotel de Saxe in the Rue du Colombier. 
With him or not far away was Foote the comedian, who was 
in Paris for rest and recreation. The trio fell in with another 
set of Englishmen, who hovered around John Craufurd of 
Errol, "one of the gayest young gentlemen", wrote a cadet 
in his service, "and the greatest gambler that ever belonged 
to Scotland". The remark ought not to be taken as in the 
least derogatory to Mr. Craufurd 's character, as the world 
went in those days ; for he was one of the best known young 



THE TOUE OF ITALY 371 

men in London and Parisian society. The season over at 
home, it was Craufurd's custom to make a circular tour 
abroad which should include Paris, where the blind and 
brilliant Madame du Deffand took him under her protection. 
He put up usually at the expensive Hotel de Pare Royal, and 
had his dinners served from the still more expensive Hotel 
de Bourbon. As befitted a young spark of wealth and 
leisure, he drove about Paris in a French chariot, with a 
French coachman and a French footman. In his company 
were the young Earl of Upper Ossory, a man of finer grain, 
and Lord William Gordon, second son of the third Duke of 
Gordon. Horace Walpole was also in Paris, living, say his 
letters, most of the time — when not with Madame du Deffand, 
or nursing the gout in his lodgings — with Craufurd and Lord 
Ossory, the latter of whom he classed among "the most 
amiable" men he had ever known — "modest, manly, very 
sensible, and well bred ' '. 

Sterne, it would appear, knew Craufurd beforehand, for 
he wrote of him as "my friend"; and he now made the 
acquaintance of the rest in the group. Walpole, who had 
hitherto kept out of Sterne's way, was at length trapped into 
his company, either at Baron d'Holbach's or Craufurd's 
table, whence good breeding would not let him escape. Wilkes 
and Foote were present on the occasion. "You will think it 
odd", Walpole wrote to Thomas Brand, on October 19, 1765, 
"that I should want to laugh, when Wilkes, Sterne, and Foote 
are here; but the first does not make me laugh, the second 
never could, and for the third, I choose to pay five shillings 
when I have a mind he should divert me. ' ' 

Either then or at another time Craufurd related to the 
company the following strange adventure, which Sterne re- 
worked for "The Case of Delicacy" at the close of the Sen- 
timental Journey: 

On the way between Verviers and Aix-la-Chapelle, the 
young man once stopped at a crowded inn and engaged the 
only room left for the night. It was a large room with a closet 
containing another but smaller bed. Half an hour later, a 
Flemish lady, called Madame Blond in the story, arrived 
with her maid in a chaise, and asked for a night's lodging, 



372 LAUEENCE STERNE 

with some perturbation of spirit when she saw that the inn 
was full. The landlady could not possibly accommodate her ; 
but Madame Blond persisted in having a bed, saying that she 
would make any shift for one night. So it was finally 
arranged that she might take the closet of the English gen- 
tleman's apartment, if he would agree to it. Thereupon 
Madame Blond, sending her compliments in advance, came 
up stairs, and asked Mr. Craufurd, "with all the politeness 
in the world ' ', if she might sit with him through the evening. 
With equal civility he made her welcome, and invited her to 
a game of cards while supper was preparing. When the 
evening had worn on to an end, Mr. Craufurd politely said: 
' ' If you like, Madame Blond, you may have the bed, as it will 
hold yourself and maid, and I will sleep in the closet. " ' ' By 
no means", replied the Flemish lady; "I am extremely 
obliged to you for the privilege of the little bed." "Come, 
madame", then rejoined Mr. Craufurd, "we will play at 
cards for the large bed." They accordingly played for it, 
and the lady lost. Madame Blond bade the English gentle- 
man good night, retired to her closet, and, as she did so, gave 
strict orders to her maid to bolt the door, though why was not 
quite clear to Mr. Craufurd, since the bolt was on the outside 
in his own room. The next morning Madame Blond went on 
to Spa, and Mr. Craufurd to Aix-la-Chapelle.* 

Near the twenty-fourth of October, Sterne left Paris, 
taking La Fleur in his smart livery along with him, and 
pursued his way southwards to Lyons — a week's journey by 
the long route which he chose through "the Bourbonnais, 
the sweetest part of France". It was "the hey-day of the 
vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every 
one's lap, and every eye is lifted up — a journey through each 
step of which Music beats time to Labour, and all her children 
are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters". Amid "the 
joyous riot" of his affections, which flew out and kindled at 
every new scene, he was sobered, according to the Sentimental 
Journey, by the sight of a distracted peasant girl sitting by 

* John Macdonald, a cadet of the family of Keppoch, Travels in 
Various Parts of Europe, Asia and Africa (London, 1790). The anec- 
dote, preceded by an account of Craufurd, is given on pages 138-40. 



THE TOUR OF ITALY 373 

the roadside as his chaise drew near Moulins, the ancient 
seat of the Bourbons. Doubtless the account of the poor girl 
can not be accepted precisely as Sterne rendered it; but 
it is quite certain that behind the adventure lay some emo- 
tional hint. Sterne related the story twice over, and a version 
subsequently got into current anecdotes, with the claim that 
it was derived from La Fleur. "When we came up to her", 
says the valet's version, "she was grovelling in the Road like 

an infant, and throwing the Dust upon her head and yet 

few were more lovely! Upon Sterne's accosting her with 
tenderness, and raising her in his arms, she collected herself 

and resumed some composure told him her tale of misery 

and wept upon his breast my master sobbed aloud. I 

saw her gently disengage herself from his arms, and she 
sung him the service to the Virgin; my poor master covered 
his face with his hands, and walked by her side to the Cottage 
where she lived." 

If the narrative purporting to come from La Fleur can 
not be proved authentic, it is at least a very good guess at 
what really occurred by the dusty roadside. Sterne himself, 
be it noted, really said no more than was attributed to his 
valet, nor quite so much as that, when he first told the story 
for the ninth volume of Shandy, though incident and emotion 
were graded by the most perfect art to a humorous conclusion : 

" They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I 

instantly let down the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly 

'Tis Maria; said the postillion, observing I was listening 

— — Poor Maria, continued he, (leaning his body on one side 
to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us), is sitting 
upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her 
little goat beside her. * * * It is but three years ago, that 
the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted and 
amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to 
have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the 

parish who published them. He was going on, when 

Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her 

mouth, and began the air again they were the same notes ; 

yet were ten times sweeter. It is the evening service to 

the Virgin, said the young man but who has taught her 



374 LAURENCE STERNE 

to play it or how she came by her pipe, no one knows. 

"We had got np by this time almost to the bank where 
Maria was sitting; she was in a thin white jacket, with her 
hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silken net, with a 

few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side 

she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an 

honest heartache, it was the moment I saw her God help 

her ! poor damsel ! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, 
have been said in the several parish churches and convents 

around, for her, but without effect. * * * As the postillion 

spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender 
and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, 
and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I 

relapsed from my enthusiasm. Maria look'd wistfully 

for some time at me, and then at her goat and then at me 

and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately 

Well, Maria, said I softly What resemblance do you 

find?'' 

A night at "an excellent inn", and Sterne went on into 
the mountains of Lyonnais. As he was ascending Mount 
Tarare in the evening, the thill-horse lost two shoes, making 
it necessary, since the postillion had no nails, to stop at a 
little farm-house for repairs. On entering the house, Sterne 
found a grey-haired peasant and his wife, with grown-up sons 
and daughters and^ a numerous progeny out of them, ' ' all 
sitting down together to their lentil-soup ; a large wheaten 
loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flaggon of wine 
at each end of it, promised joy through the stages of the 
repast". The peasant, rising up and stepping towards the 
stranger, cordially invited him to join in the evening meal. 
"I sat down at once ' ', says Sterne, who was as much at home 
with a French peasant as with Baron d'Holbach, "like a son 
of the family; and to invest myself in the character as 
speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, 
and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon. " 
When supper was over, the sons and daughters of labour all 
ran out on a little esplanade in front of the house; and the 
peasant and his wife followed with their guest, who sat down 
between them "upon a sopha of turf by the door". The old 



THE TOUR OF ITALY 375 

man touched his vielle, and all the children and grandchildren 
fell into the evening dance. 

After watching the scene through a few dances, Sterne 
pushed on to Tar are, a little town among the mountains, 
where he engaged a voiturin with a couple of mules to con- 
duct him in his chaise down the descent to Lyons and on 
through Savoy. At Lyons, he spent a joyous week, "dining 
and supping every day at the commandant's", in company 
with ten or twelve other Englishmen who were accorded 
similar hospitality. Of them was a certain "Lord F. W.", 
and Home Tooke, the pugnacious parson who was about to 
turn political agitator in favour of Wilkes. Mr. Home, as 
he was then called, was a young man under thirty who had 
not yet discovered his true vocation. Some years before, he 
had "suffered", he told "Wilkes, "the infectious hand of a 
bishop to be waved over" him, but he "was not ordained a 
hypocrite", and would go his own way. On coming over 
to France as bear-leader to the son of a Mr. Taylor of 
Brentford, he discarded his clerical dress, and flaunted 
through Paris in scarlet and silver, alternating with blue 
and silver. There were indeed no less than five variegated 
suits in his wardrobe. After visiting Wilkes and offering 
him his services, he started on the grand tour a day or two 
before Sterne arrived in Paris. Although Sterne found him 
an agreeable companion enough at Lyons, he was clearly 
bored by his eulogies of the champion of British liberty. 
"Is there any cause of coldness", Home enquired in a letter 
to Wilkes, ' ' between you and Sterne ? He speaks very hand- 
somely of you, when it is absolutely necessary to speak at all ; 
but not with that warmth and enthusiasm, that I expect 
from every one that knows you."* When the two men 
parted, Home for Montpellier and Sterne for Italy, it was 
agreed that they should meet at Siena in the summer. 

Sterne's route lay through the mountain passes of Savoy 
over Mont Cenis to Turin. A day's journey brought him to 
Pont-de-Beauvoisin, a small town almost surrounded by two 
branches of the Guiers-Vif, which takes its rise in the 

* Alexander Stephens, Memoirs of John Home TooTce, II, 76-7 (Lon- 
don, 1813). 



376 LAURENCE STERNE 

Alps. At this place, Sterne was held prisoner for two or 
three days by the terrible autumn rains, which poured down 
upon him and his fellow travellers, as if heaven and earth 
were coming together. The petty rivulets swelled with the 
rains and the melting snow until they became impassable; 
and Sterne, hemmed in on all sides, could neither return to 
Lyons nor advance into the mountains. Setting forward at 
length on the eighth of November, with voiturin and mules, 
he was a full week in traversing Savoy, along precipices, up 
and down narrow valleys by the side of mountain torrents 
and cataracts, " which roll down great stones" from the 
summits. One evening, as he was hastening through a pour- 
ing rain from St. Michel to Modane, his mules came to a 
sudden halt before a huge fragment of rock which had fallen 
across the road. All day long the peasants had been trying 
to remove it; and for two hours more they laboured on into 
the "wet and tempestuous night", while Sterne sat in his 
chaise, watching them through the window amid the flare of 
torches. When a narrow passage was finally cleared for him, 
it was too late to reach Modane, and so he stopped at a 
wayside inn, where he placed, in closing the Sentimental 
Journey, the delicate adventure with the Piedmontese lady 
and the maid of Lyonnais. To Sterne, who had none of the 
poet Gray's passion for the sublime, it had all been a perilous 
tour of "sudden turns and dangers" — "difficulties of getting 
up", and "horrors of getting down" — through a province 
where nature lay in wild disorder, with little to give, except 
a sheltered habitation, to a "poor, patient, quiet, honest, 
people". 

Eight slight letters — one of them unpublished and two 
of them mere notes to Panchaud his banker — supplemented 
by little else, must carry us with Sterne through Italy as 
far south as Naples and back on the return tour. Letters to 
his wife which he intermittently posted, and a large bundle 
of papers which he is said to have brought home with him, 
containing his impressions of the manners and customs of the 
people along with incidents by the way, have gone with the 
wreck of time. It must have been, if his reckoning was 
correct, on the evening of November 14 when Sterne en- 



THE TOUR OF ITALY 377 

tered Turin, the first Italian city that he ever saw, through a 
corso of over-arching trees, ten miles in length and as straight 
as a line, leading to the spacious Piazza Castello, where stands 
the old royal palace, and near which Smollett a few months 
before had taken up his quarters. Sterne's agreeable emo- 
tions on entering a city of wide and regular avenues, like the 
Via di Po, flanked with colonnades against the sun, may per- 
haps be inferred from his remark about old Paris, whose 
streets, he said, were so narrow that a man could never tell 
on which side he was walking. It was his first intention to 
make Turin only a stopping-place on the way to Milan; but 
continual rains, which had laid the intervening country 
under water, rendered it impossible for him to proceed for 
a fortnight. It was "a joyous fortnight". Within twenty- 
four hours after his arrival he received invitations to "a 
dozen houses ' ' ; the following day he was presented to the 
King of Sardinia ; and when that ceremony was over, he had 
his "hands full of engagements". 

Only two other Englishmen were then in Turin — "Mr. 
Ogilby", who permitted Sterne to take down his name for 
five sets of the Sentimental Journey on imperial paper, and 
the young Sir James Macdonald of Skye, over whose death 
the Western Isles were soon to lament, as the Marcellus upon 
whom they had rested their hopes. Nothing else lets us into 
the charm of Sterne's personality quite so well as the ease 
with which he attached himself to young men, who choose 
their companions by a subtle instinct, which they never stop 
to explain, and could not explain if they tried. Between 
Sterne and Macdonald it was attraction at first sight. The 
young baronet, only twenty-four years old, united the best 
traditions of Eton and Oxford for scholarship with uncom- 
monly fine manners, large talents for business, and "the 
patriarchal spirit", says Boswell, "of a great Highland chief- 
tain". After sharing in "all kinds of honours" at Turin, 
the two men bade their friends adieu with regret, and started 
on November 28 for the south by a long detour, which 
included many of the towns of northern Italy. Macdonald 
was longing to see Rome; and Sterne, whose health again 
showed signs of breaking, thought it best to winter in 



378 LAURENCE STERNE 

Naples. Writing to Panchaud on business when they reached 
Florence, Sterne incidentally gave his delightful itinerary 
up to that point. "I have been a month", he said, "passing 

the plains of Lombardie stopping in my way at Milan, 

Parma, Placenza, and Bologna with weather as delicious 

as a kindly April in England, and have been three days in 

crossing a part of the Apenines cover 'd with thick snow 

sad transition!" 

At Milan occurred an adventure which he tucked into the 
Sentimental Journey. "I was going", as Sterne elaborated 
the story, "one evening to Martini's concert at Milan, and 
was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina 
di F * * * was coming out in a sort of a hurry — she was 
almost upon me before I saw her; so I gave a spring to one 

side to let her pass She had done the same, and on the 

same side too: so we ran our heads together: she instantly 
got to the other side to get out: I was just as fortunate as 
she had been ; for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her 

passage again We both flew together to the other side, 

and then back and so on it was ridiculous; we both 

blush 'd intolerably; so I did at last the thing I should have 

done at first 1 stood stock still, and the Marquisina had 

no more difficulty. I had no power to go into the room, till 
I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow 

her with my eye to the end of the passage She look'd 

back twice. * * * I ran and begg'd pardon for the embar- 
rassment T had given her, saying it was my intention to have 

made her way. * * * I begg'd to hand her to her coach 

so we went down the stairs, stopping at every third step to 

talk of the concert and the adventure Upon my word, 

Madame, said I, when I had handed her in, I made six differ- 
ent efforts to let you go out And I made six efforts, replied 

she, to let you enter 1 wish to heaven you would make a 

seventh, said I With all my heart, said she, making room 

Life is too short to be long about the forms of it 

so I instantly stepp'd in, and she carried me home with her 

And what became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who, I 

suppose, was at it, knows more than I. * * * The connection 
which arose out of the translation, gave me more pleasure 



THE TOUE OF ITALY 379 

than any one I had the honour to make in Italy." The 
woman of this sentimental encounter was none other than the 
beautiful and cultivated Marchesa Fagniani, who became the 
friend of George Selwyn and the mother of Maria Fagniani, 
wife of the third Marquis of Hertford. 

Sterne allowed only three days for Florence, or just 
time enough to exchange civilities with Sir Horace Mann, 
the English envoy to the Court of Tuscany. Since 1760 Mann 
had been reading the successive instalments of Tristram 
Shandy, which diverted him extremely, though he thought 
there was some ''humbugging" in the style; at least men did 
not talk and write that way when he was last in England.* 
Macdonald was also known to Mann through letters from 
their mutual friend, Horace Walpole, who described him as 
"a very extraordinary young man for variety and learning, 
* * * rather too wise for his age, and too fond of showing 
it", but likely to "choose to know less" after seeing more of 
the world. f Sterne and Macdonald were dined at the 
envoy's with two young men of rank, whom they perhaps 
knew beforehand. One was Earl Cowper, subsequently 
created a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, who was held 
bound to Florence by a tender passion for a Tuscan lady; 
and the other was the Duke of Portland, the future Prime 
Minister. Sterne of course visited the Duomo, Santa Croce, 
and the Uffizi Gallery with his friends; and yet the only 
positive evidence pointing that way is his banter of Smollett 
in the Sentimental Journey for seeing "no beauty in the 
features" of the Venus of Medici, and for thinking the atti- 
tude "awkward and out of character". 

As the travellers drew near Rome, Sterne became im- 
patient for the morning when he might "tread the Vatican 
and be introduced to all the saints of the Pantheon". Two 
weeks were set aside for sight-seeing in the imperial city. 
There are vague traditions that Sterne was several times 
received by the Pope, and introduced to the noble families of 
Doria and Santa Croce. Though all details of his reception 

*D. Doran, Mann and Manners, II, 71 (London, 1876). 

t For Walpole on Macdonald, see especially Letters, edited by Toyn- 
bee, VI, 305-6, 313, 418, 423. 



380 LAURENCE STERNE 

are lacking, it is safe to say that Sterne could not have 
stayed in Rome a fortnight or more without his presence 
being widely known, nor have forgone the humorous delight 
of an audience with the head Of the Church that he had so 
abused in his sermons. The intimation in the Sentimental 
Journey that he encountered Smollett in "the grand portico 
of the Pantheon", and overheard the satirist say, as he was 
leaving, that it was "nothing but a huge cockpit", can not 
be accepted literally; for Smollett was then in England. If 
the two antipathies ever met face to face, it was two years 
before at Montpellier. 

At Rome Sterne and Macdonald overtook "a young gen- 
tleman of fortune" named Errington, a friend of three 
years' standing, with whom they journeyed south to Naples, 
just in time to witness a fresh outburst of Vesuvius.* By 
the middle of January they were all established together in the 
same house, said to have been the Casa di Mansel; and near 
them were scattered a score of their countrymen, including 
' ' Mr. Symonds, a person of learning and character ' ', who may 
be identified with John Symonds, Professor of Modern His- 
tory at Cambridge in succession to Gray. The company had 
its own pastimes — sight-seeing, games, and conversation over 
news from home as it came in letters and in the London 
Chronicle — and invitations out with the most fashionable 
Neapolitan society. "We have a jolly carnival of it", 
Sterne wrote to Hall-Stevenson in February, "nothing but 

operas — punchinelloes — festinos and masquerades We (that 

is, nous autres) are all dressing out for one this night at the 
Princess Francavivalla [Prancavilla], which is to be superb. 

The English dine with her (exclusive) and so much for 

small chat — except that I saw a little comedy acted last 
week with more expression and spirit, and true character, 
than I shall see one hastily again". 

Neapolitan gaiety under a mild sun agreed perfectly with 
Sterne's constitution. "I find myself infinitely better than 
I was", he wrote to his daughter Lydia, after three weeks at 
Naples, "and hope to have added at least ten years to my 

life by this journey to Italy the climate is heavenly, and 

* St. James's Chronicle, February 22-25, 1766. 




Laurence Sterne 
From the replica of a bust by Nollekens at Skelton Castle 



THE TOUE OF ITALY 381 

I find new principles of health in me, which I have been 
long a stranger to." Thus improving, even "growing fat, 
sleek, and well liking ' ', Sterne stayed on until about the first 
of April; and then posted back to Rome with Macdonald, 
Errington and Symonds, in time for the novel and impressive 
ceremonies of Holy Week. In the interval of waiting, he sat 
to Nollekens for a portrait bust in terra-cotta, which de- 
servedly brought the sculptor "into great notice ". The face, 
as one views it in profile, has none of the pinched Voltairean 
features of the Carmontelle portrait; it is large and full, 
indicative of renewed strength and vigour. "With this per- 
formance", says the sculptor's biographer, "Nollekens con- 
tinued to be pleased even to his second childhood, and often 
mentioned a picture which Dance had made of him leaning 
upon Sterne's head."* After Easter Sterne's little company 
of travellers broke up. The first to leave was Symonds, who 
was going home through France. At his departure, Sterne 
gave him a note of introduction, as yet unpublished, to Dr. 
Jamme, an old Toulouse friend then in Paris, which is most 
interesting as Sterne's last word on the benefit and pleasure 
he had received from his sojourn in Italy. "I am much 
recover 'd", he wrote on Easter Sunday, the nineteenth of 

April, "by the Neapolitan Air 1 have been here in my 

return three Weeks, seeing over again what I saw first 
in my way to Naples. * * * We have pass'd a jolly laugh- 
ing winter of it — and having changed the Scene for Rome; 
we are passing as merry a Spring as hearts could wish. I 
wish my friends no better fortune in this world, than to go 

at this rate Jtaec est Vita dissolutorum." 

At the date of this letter and for some time before, it had 
been Sterne's design to travel leisurely homewards through 
Germany, as companion to Errington. They were to start 
"in a few days" for Venice, where Sterne expected to meet 
"many worthy men" whom he esteemed, and proceed thence 
to Venice, Dresden, Berlin, and Spa, and so on to England, 
either through Holland or by a loop which should give them 
a week or two in Paris. With this in mind while at Naples, 

* J. T. Smith, NolleJceas and his Times, edited by Gosse, 34 (London, 
1895). 



382 LAURENCE STERNE 

Sterne requested Panchaud to draw him a small letter of 
credit upon Mr. Watson, his correspondent at Venice, and to 
forward all his letters thither by Ascension week in care of the 
banker. Hall-Stevenson was also commissioned to obtain for 
him a letter of recommendation from Pitt or Lord Hertford 
to Lord Stormont, the English Ambassador at Vienna, "im- 
porting that I am not fallen from the clouds". At other 
times, opportunities of leading young men about Europe had 
come to Sterne, but he had let them all pass, expressing, as 
he did so, either a dislike of the gentleman in question or of 
a mode of travel which commonly made the tutor subservient 
to the whims of a mere boy. In this instance, however, the 
prospects were good for an enjoyable tour, which would cost 
him nothing beyond a little pocket money "in case of sick- 
ness and accidents". "As I know him", he wrote of 
Errington to Hall-Stevenson, "to be a good-hearted young 
gentleman, I have no doubt of making it answer both his 

views and mine at least I am persuaded we shall return 

home together, as we set out, with friendship and goodwill." 
But for some reason Sterne changed his plans at the last 
moment, and decided to go home directly, either over the old 
route through Piedmont and Savoy, or more likely — after 
revisiting Siena and Florence — by boat from Leghorn to Mar- 
seilles, and thence to Paris and Calais. Was there a quarrel 
or a misunderstanding, such as Sterne had often seen, and 
feared for himself in these relationships? It may have been 
so. And yet what drew Sterne away from Errington into 
Prance was really, I think, a desire to visit his wife and 
daughter, and to persuade them to return with him to Cox- 
wold. Such at least is the tenor of a letter to Lydia. He 
felt some anxiety, too, for their heaHh. Mrs. Sterne was 
still troubled with rheumatism; and both herself and Lydia 
were trying to rid themselves of an ague which they had 
contracted at Tours during the winter. Be the reason what 
it may, Sterne and Errington separated towards the end of 
April, leaving Macdonald behind them ill at Home. The 
young Scot had been in miserable health all winter. While 
at Naples he came down with a malarial fever which assumed 
the deceitful complexion of rheumatism; but when spring 



THE TOUR OF ITALY 383 

approached lie seemed to be recovering. Then came a 
relapse in Easter week at Rome. No one, however, felt any 
uneasiness as to the ultimate issue. His stomach, his physi- 
cian told Macdonald, would soon regain its tone, and the pal- 
pitation of which he complained, "must cease in time". 
But the palpitation ceased only with the beating of his heart 
on the twenty-sixth of July. To his memory, his mother, 
Lady Margaret Macdonald, daughter of the Earl of Eglin- 
ton, erected a monument in the parish church of Sleat, for 
which his friend George, Lord Lyttelton, wrote a long inscrip- 
tion, saying that at his death in Rome "such extraordinary 
honours were paid to his memory as had never graced that 
of any other British subject since the death of Sir Philip 
Sidney ". Any one who doubts the appropriateness of the 
comparison has only to read Macdonald 's letters to his mother 
from Rome during his illness. "There is no circumstance 
of danger and pain", he wrote the night before his death, 
"of which I have not had the experience." But he kept his 
condition from his mother until the last moment, supporting 
his painful illness "with admirable patience and fortitude".* 
Near the first of May, Sterne entered France, ready to 
pay his respects to his wife; but he was uncertain where to 
look for her; for she had long since left Tours on a ramble 
with Lydia whither caprice might lead her. It was ' ' a wild- 
goose chace" for the husband through "five or six different 
towns", until he discovered a trail which took him through 
Dijon, far off his route, into the old province of Franche 
Comte or Upper Burgundy. "Poor woman!" he wrote to 
Hall- Stevenson after he had found her, "she was very cor- 
dial, &c. and begs to stay another year or so my Lydia 

pleases me much 1 found her greatly improved in every- 
thing I wish'd her 1 am most unaccountably well, and 

most unaccountably nonsensical 'tis at least a proof of 

good spirits, which is a sign and token given me in these 

latter days that I must take up again the pen In faith I 

think I shall die with it in my hand, but I shall live these ten 

* See especially BoswelPs "Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides' ' in 
Life of Samuel Johnson, edited by P. Fitzgerald, III, 297-99 (London, 
1874). 



384 LAUBENCE STERNE 

years, my Antony, notwithstanding the fears of my wife, 
whom I left most melancholy on that account." 

Retracing his steps towards Dijon, he turned out of his 

road to "a delicious Chateau of the Countess of M ", an 

old Parisian friend, doubtless, who was at her country-seat 
with a house full of guests. There Sterne rested for a week, 
"patriarching it * * * with her ladyship and half a dozen 
of very handsome and agreeable ladies". It was "a delicious 
part of the world", and "most celestial weather", so that 
they could "lie all day, without damps, on the grass"; and 
twice a day conversation was "inspired * * * with the best 
Burgundy that grows upon the mountains". From this 
charming retreat, which reads like a scene out of Boccaccio, 
Sterne broke away on the twenty-sixth of May ; and, to make 
up for lost time, posted night and day to Paris, "where" — ■ 
he informed Hall-Stevenson — "I shall arrive in two days, 
and just wind myself up, when I am there, enough to roll 

on to Calais so I hope to sup with you the king's birth 

day, according to a plan of sixteen days standing". 

If Sterne kept the covenant to celebrate his Majesty's 
birthday with Hall-Stevenson, who was then in London, he 
had only three days for winding himself up in Paris. In 
passing through the city, he fell in with the Abbe Galiani, 
the Neapolitan envoy to France, a savant and wit near the 
first rank. Their conversation, which likely occurred over 
the dessert at Baron d'Holbach's, turned to Sterne's sojourn 
in Italy. Galiani, who looked upon the sentimental hu- 
mourist as rather a bore, nevertheless set down one bon mot 
to his credit. Years afterwards, when recalled by the King 
of Naples, he wrote to Madame d'Epinay, saying, "The 
only good thing which that tiresome Monsieur Sterne ever 
uttered was his remark to me one day that it was far better 
to die in Paris than to live in Naples."* The influence of 
his Italian journey thus fading into the background, Sterne 
hastened home to catch the end of the London season. His 
valet, retaining the pretty name of La Fleur, which Sterne 

* Lettres de VAbbe Galiani a Madame d'Epinay, II, 137 (Paris, 
1881). For the meeting between Galiani and Sterne see Memoires de 
I'Abbe Morellet, I, 128 (Paris, 1821). 



THE TOUK OF ITALY 3g5 

had given to him out of current French comedy, is said to 
have married one of the girls of Montreuil for whom he was 
to bring a pardon from Rome, and to have opened a public 
house in Calais for English sailors navigating packet boats 
across the Channel. Ill luck attended the enterprise after 
the outbreak of war between France and England, and 
La Fleur took up his career as valet again. The story may be 
mere fiction, and yet it seems probable enough to be true.* 

* An account of La Fleur and of Sterne's journey from the valet 'a 
point of view appeared in the European Magazine in a long article 
running through September, October, and November, 1790. Parts of 
the narrative were reprinted by William Davis in his Olio, 25-32 (Lon- 
don, 1814). The story, although purporting to have come from the 
lips of La Fleur himself, is quite untrustworthy as a whole; but it has 
behind it a real La Fleur and vague traditions. 



m 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE LAST VOLUME OF TRISTRAM SHANDY 

JUNE 1766— MAECH 1767 

Midsummer saw Sterne once more in the "peaceful re- 
treat" of his parish, meditating the maxim that "man's 
happiness depends upon himself", irrespective of where he 
may be, whether at Naples or at Coxwold. But with the best 
disposition in the world to be consoled by the shreds of 
philosophy, the moralist was ill at ease, moody, and inclined 
to keep close within his shell. This year we read of no visits 
to Skelton, Scarborough, or Harrogate. Even invitations to 
Newburgh Priory, less than two miles away, were accepted 
only because they could not be avoided, and with the com- 
plaint that these courtesies of his patron oppressed him to 
death. His visitations of Alne and Tollerton also, which he 
usually made in person when in Yorkshire, were performed 
this summer by his surrogate. And so nearly everything 
known about Sterne until he went up to London at Christ- 
mas points to the seclusion of Shandy Hall. 

The reasons for his depressed spirits are quite obvious. 
Hemorrhages, from which he seems to have been free while 
abroad, set in again, and increased through the autumn until 
he had three in one month. Another source of trouble lay 
in his finances. If the cost of his sojourn in Italy had been 
lightened by the generosity of Errington and Macdonald, the 
gain thereby had been many times offset by the expenses of 
Mrs. Sterne, for whose mode of life the old allowance of two 
hundred guineas a year was proving inadequate. She was 
spending nearly double the sum. To balance his account to 
date, he directed Panchaud to draw upon Becket for a hun- 
dred and sixty pounds, that the banker's books might be 
clear for fresh credit — for fifty pounds, for thirty pounds, 
etc., just as Mrs. Sterne might need these sums. Sterne, 

38G 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TRISTKAM SHANDY 357 

perplexed though he was at his wife's extravagances, uttered 
no word of complaint. "You may rely", he wrote to Pan- 
chaud, "in case it ever happens that she should draw for 
fifty or a hundred pounds extraordinary, that it and every 
demand shall be punctually paid — and with proper thanks; 
and for this the whole Shandean family are ready to stand 
security." Mrs. Sterne's large expenditures, it is but just 
to add, were partly occasioned by ill health, which drove her 
from place to place, in hope of improvement by change of 
climate. One letter after another arrived at Shandy Hall 
from Lydia, describing her mother's alarming symptoms, 
and so wrought upon Sterne that he imagined his wife was 
"going the way of us all". She was so ill that at one time 
he began to make preparations to start for the south of 
France, in order to administer spiritual comfort in the last 
stages of the melancholy scene. But the journey proved 
to be unnecessary, for Mrs. Sterne recovered under the 
influence of liberal remittances. Besides the affairs of his 
wife, urgent parish business, with which Sterne had fallen 
out of tune, entered Shandy Hall to disturb further his 
repose. The enclosure of Stillington Common and certain 
fields and meadows dispersed in the parish, which had been 
a question for some years, was now authorised by a private 
Act of Parliament, for which he had petitioned along with 
Stephen Croft and seven small landowners. Under the Act 
were appointed three commissioners to make the awards, 
with whom it was necessary for Sterne to meet, in order to 
safeguard his rights as vicar of the parish. In these affairs 
there were always disputes and differences over conflicting 
claims and minor questions of roads, hedges, and gates, all 
of which Sterne summed up in a letter to Hall-Stevenson, 
saying, "I'm tormented to death and the devil by my Stil- 
lington Inclosure". 

But we should not draw too dark a picture of Sterne's 
distresses, for the pliability of his temper always saved him. 
In July his vanity was flattered by a letter from the negro 
Ignatius Sancho, who felt constrained to tell the reverend 
author how much he had been benefited by books which are 
"universally read and universally admired". Sancho was a 



388 LAUEENCE STEENE 

slave, born on a ship plying in the trade between Africa and 
the Spanish Main. Baptised at Carthagena under the name 
of Ignatius, he was brought to England when a boy ; and sub- 
sequently the surname of Sancho was given to him, because of 
some fancied resemblance that his master saw between him 
and Don Quixote 's squire. Of quick intelligence, he learned to 
read and write, and even attempted the roles of Othello and 
Oroonoko on the stage. At the date of his letter to Sterne, 
he was in the service of George, the fourth Duke of Montagu, 
who for small services gave him leisure to read and to culti- 
vate his tastes in many ways. Like "millions" of others, he 
was in love with the "amiable" my uncle Toby; and as for 
Trim, he "would walk ten miles in the dog-days, to shake 
hands with the honest Corporal"; but his heart had been 
touched and amended most by Yoriek's sermons, especially 
by the discourse on the troubles of life as exemplified in Job's 
misfortunes, containing a sorrowful passage on the bitter 
draught of slavery which untold millions are compelled to 
drink to the dregs. Can you not, Sancho besought Sterne, 
"give half an hour's attention to slavery as it is at this day 
undergone in the West Indies? That subject handled in your 
own manner, would ease the Yoke of many, perhaps occasion 

a reformation throughout our Islands But should one be 

the better for it gracious God ! What a feast ! Very sure 

I am, that Yorick is an Epicure in Charity. * * * Dear 

Sir, think in me you behold the uplifted hands of Millions 
of my Moorish brethren. Grief (you pathetically observe) 

is eloquent figure to yourself their attitudes hear their 

supplicatory addresses humanity must comply".* When 

Sancho 's letter reached Shandy Hall, Sterne had just com- 
pleted, by "a strange coincidence", "a tender tale of the 
sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl"; and while his eyes 
were "still smarting" with it, he wrote back to say that he 
would weave the story, if it could be managed, into the next 
volume of Shandy, in the hope that it might help lift the 
"sad shade" which slavery was casting over the world. 

A month after this affecting correspondence, the parson 
was called to York to give a dignified close to the great races. 

* Morgan Manuscripts. 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 389 

This year all classes, from the nobility down to adventurers, 
poured into the city, and all entertainments were on a grand 
scale, in honour of Sterne's friend, the young Duke of York, 
who condescended to be present throughout the entire gala 
week. The festivities began on Tuesday the nineteenth of 
August, when the officials of the city in their formalities 
waited upon the duke, and congratulated him on his safe 
arrival. Then followed every day the races on the field of 
Knavesmire, with a play at the theatre and a ball at the 
Assembly Rooms in the evening, to say nothing of cock-fights, 
and noisy scenes of chance at the coffee-houses, where 
Yorkshire squires fell easy victims to professional sharpers 
down from London, or lost their purses while watching the 
game, nobody knew just how or just where. On Saturday 
night ended a week such as no one could remember; and on 
the next morning everybody went in sober mood to the 
cathedral to listen to the moral of it all. As described in the 
newspapers of the day, it was an impressive scene in the great 
church. His Royal Highness, as the central figure, was 
escorted to the west door of the minster, " where he was 
received * * * by the Residentiary and Choir, the Lord 
Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen, who ushered him up to the 
Archbishop's Throne, where he heard an excellent Discourse 
from the Rev. Mr. Sterne".* What the text was it is 
impossible to determine from the sermons of Sterne after- 
wards published, several of which, running upon a contrast 
between a godless and a Christian life, were appropriate 
enough to the occasion, though none contains the sure clue. 
It was Sterne's last sermon in St. Peter's, where he won his 
laurels nearly twenty years before. 

On Monday York reckoned up £10,000 as her gains from 
the races ; the duke set out for Scarborough with his retinue ; 
and Sterne, though he may have accompanied his royal 
friend to the waters, most likely returned to Coxwold to 
complete Tristram Shandy. During his long absence abroad, 
Sterne had lost interest in the work, which, however broadly 
its satire expanded at times under his hand, was essentially 
local in inspiration. His design now was to wind up my 

* St. James's Chronicle, August 26-28, 1766. 



390 LAUKENCE STEKNE 

uncle Toby's amours in a single volume for next winter, and 
then to proceed with an account of his own travels on the 
Continent. Thus refreshed by a change of theme, he thought 
that he might again take up the Shandy household with 
greater zest. Still, there was some fire left for Sterne in the 
old subject, though it had narrowed down to my uncle Toby 
and the widow Wadman. In nearly Sterne's best manner 
was the attack of the captain in military form on the heart 
of the self-seeking widow, with their conversations over my 
uncle Toby's wound in the groin, as they sat on the sofa in 
the parlour, while the author stood by to translate into words 
what was going on in Mrs. Wadman 's fancy, as she blushed, 
turned pale, resumed her natural colour, or cast her look 
towards the door. And if we must have a cock-and-bull 
story, it would be difficult to match the one closing the book, 
reminiscent of the days when Sterne was a farmer at Sutton- 
on-the-Forest. In the amusing story which the corporal 
told of his brother Tom's courtship of the Jew's widow who 
sold sausages at Lisbon, appeared, it may be, the episode 
of the friendless negro girl which Sterne had promised 
Sancho. Though not going very deeply into the question of 
slavery, it was a very " pretty picture", my uncle Toby 
thought, as he imagined the poor girl in the sausage shop, 
"with a bunch of white feathers slightly tied to the end of a 
long cane, flapping away flies — not killing them". The 
narrative, scant as it was, satisfied Sancho and connected his 
name with Sterne. The polite world, who soon knew why 
the Moorish girl got into Shandy, courted the sentimental 
negro, and Gainsborough painted for them his portrait. In 
the years that followed, it became the fashion among the 
tender-hearted to rid themselves of flies, not by torturing or 
killing them, but by gently brushing them aside or spouting 
cold water upon them. 

While Sterne was putting the last strokes of humour to 
his book, the troubled skies which had hung over him during 
the summer and autumn were fast clearing. The waste 
lands of Stillington were surveyed for a just division; and 
good news arrived from the south of France. Mrs. Sterne, 
said letters from Lydia asking for another hundred guineas, 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TRISTBAM SHANDY 391 

was now "out of danger"; and to complete the cure, Sterne 
sent her some of Huxham's Tincture of the Bark, the current 
remedy against agues. Wife and daughter, having ended 
their summer travels, rented a chateau near Avignon, in the 
picturesque valley of the Sorgue running down from the 
Fountain of Vaucluse, where they planned to settle for good, 
after a short visit to Marseilles for the Christmas carnival. 
They remained at Marseilles rather longer than they ex- 
pected, owing, doubtless, to its large and agreeable English 
colony, composed this winter of "many young men of for- 
tune", including the son and grandson of Lord Southwell, 
who were abroad with Edmond Malone,* the future editor of 
Shakespeare. Lydia's heart, however, was at Vaucluse, amid 
the romantic scenes where Petrarch lived, and wrote the 
sonnets to Laura. The pretty chateau which the genteel 
ladies chose, had "seven rooms of a floor — half furnished 
with tapestry, half with blue taff ety ",— and carried, with an 
annual rental of sixteen guineas, permission to fish in the 
stream, and an allowance every week of partridges and other 
game. Near them lived the Abbe de Sade, who had just 
written a book on Petrarch, mainly to prove that Laura 
was the wife of one of his ancestors. Calling almost every day 
for quiet talk, the Abbe overlooked Lydia's French as she 
was practising it on a translation of her father's sermons. 
There came to the chateau also a French marquis, who offered 
Lydia his heart and twenty thousand livres a year. One day 
he made a coarse remark to the Abbe, apparently about Laura, 
which displeased Lydia and brought the romance to a quick 
conclusion. Except for the ill-breeding of the marquis, all 
these little details, reaching Sterne post by post, delighted 
the fond father. Again and again he pictured Lydia fishing 
by the Fountain of Vaucluse, translating his sermon on the 
House of Mourning, and reading or listening to the story 
of Petrarch and Laura. Only one element was wanting to 
the sentimental scene. Lydia broke her guitar and could 
not replace it at Marseilles. As soon as Sterne heard of the 
disaster, he besought Panchaud to make his girl happy by 
sending one on from Paris. "It must be strung", were his 
* James Prior, Life of Edmond Malone, 23-29 (London, 1860). 



392 LAUBENCE STERNE 

precise directions in the only Italian sentence surviving from 

his pen, "with cat-gut and of five cords si chiama in Ital- 

iano la chit era di cinque corde". Thereafter Lydia might sit 
on the banks of the Sorgue, fishing or playing her guitar 
at will. 

In good spirits again, though greatly weakened by recent 
illness, Sterne posted to London towards the close of Decem- 
ber, in advance of a heavy fall of snow, which blocked travel 
or made it dangerous during half of January. As it was, 
he had a hard time of it in reaching town. "I arrived here 
but yesterday", he wrote on the first day of the new year, 
"after a terrible journey of most inhospitable weather."* 
Unusual interest centers round the lodgings which he selected 
this winter, for in them he was to take his final rest a year 
later. They were in the most fashionable part of the town, 
over a wig-maker's shop, on the west side of Old Bond 
Street, off Piccadilly^ The building — it was then number 41 1 
— stood for more than a century much as it was in Sterne's 
day, except that the wig-maker gave place, in the revolution 
of society, to a cheesemonger, and the cheesemonger in turn 
to a picture dealer. Finally, some years ago, all was swept 
away for a modern picture gallery. From these apartments 
in Bond Street, Sterne sent out many letters to his friends, 
which, when read side by side with the newspapers of the 
time, will enable us to see Yorick as he enters and treads 
through another round of pleasure among new as well as old 
scenes and faces. 

Sterne's first day in London left him melancholy, for he 
was all tired out, and most of his friends were still in the 
country for the holidays. Nobody, he complained, was at 
St. James's Coffee-House, where he just stepped in, except 
Sir Charles Dan vers, and "Gilly" Williams, who was inflight 
for Brighton. But a few days later all was changed; and 
the new year opened gaily for him with theatres, dinners, 
and assemblies. On the second of January, Garrick brought 
out at Drury Lane a romantic drama called Cymon, supposed 

* Morgan Manuscripts. 

t Notes and Queries, fourth series, XII, 158-59. It is not quite cer- 
tain that Sterne had not previously occupied these lodgings. 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TKISTKAM SHANDY 393 

to have been his own in collaboration with Master Arne, the 
musician. For a month London ran mad over its songs, 
costumes, and spectacular setting. Sterne, who always had 
a box at his disposal for any evening, was present on the great 
night of the eighth when the king attended with his royal 
party. He also sometimes dropped in at Covent Garden, 
where Shuter was playing Falstaff and the Miser; but the 
house he found empty except for " citizens' children and 
apprentices". Murphy's School for Guardians, which he 
saw at the rival theatre on the tenth, the friend of Garrick 
pronounced "a most miserable affair", which barely survived 
a first performance, so completely had Cymon drawn off the 
polite world, which filled Drury Lane "brim full every 
night". In these latter days, the theatre was thus becoming 
for Sterne more than ever a place to go to with the company 
where he happened to be dining, to see, meet, and converse 
with friends. 

He dined on a Sunday at Lord Ossory's with "the old 
folks" and "the young virgins", and went afterwards "not 
much to my credit", he said, to the Duchess of Hamilton's, 
for "there were no virgins there". The Lady Hamilton of 
whose drawing-room Sterne spoke so ungallantly, was one of 
those Miss Gunnings whom everybody declared, when the 
two lucky Irish girls first came upon the town penniless, and 
quickly won their coronets, "the handsomest women alive". 
The duchess was still a beautiful woman, but beauty without 
innocence or without wit — one or the other — had no attraction 
for Yorick. 

Sterne was present, we may be certain, at the Earl 
of Shelburne's levee on the twelfth; where or elsewhere he 
apparently fell in with the Virginian Arthur Lee, the 
youngest of three famous brothers, of whom the others were 
Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot. The young Vir- 
ginian, barely twenty-six years old, had been educated at 
Eton and had taken a degree in medicine at Edinburgh. 
After the grand tour and a visit home, he had returned to 
England "as special agent"* of the Massachusetts Bay 

* The Lee MSS. (Harvard University library). Among them is an 
undated letter from Shelburne. inviting Lee to Bath. See also K. H. 



394 LAUKENCE STERNE 

Colony. The Stamp Act repealed, he was then negotiating with 
Shelburne on the fisheries. Boswell, who had associated 
with him at Edinburgh, trapped Dr. Johnson into a dinner 
with the ' ' patriot ' ' and Wilkes ; and Sterne, in return for the 
Virginian's interest in his books, introduced him to his 
friends and acted as his adviser in sentimental attachments. 
' 'The idol of your heart", he wrote to him recklessly, before 
the year was over, "is one of ten thousand. The Duke 

of has long sighed in vain and can you suppose a 

woman will listen to you, that is proof against titles, stars, 
and red ribbands? * * * Take my advice, and pay your 

addresses to Miss she esteems you, and time will wear 

off an attachment which has taken so deep a root in your 

heart. 1 pity you from my soul but we are all born 

with passions which ebb and flow (else they would play the 
devil with us) to different objects.'' Franklin was also in 
London representing the colony of Pennsylvania. Meeting 
Sterne somewhere, he gave in his name for Sterne's sermons 
promised in the autumn. Sterne put him down in his private 
book for two sets, and — indicative of Franklin's business 
methods — wrote after the entry the word paid* 

The first week or two Sterne was also much in the society 
of the Duke of York. His Koyal Highness, who had been 
spending Christmas in the country with Lord Spencer at 
Althorp, returned to town three or four days after Sterne's 
arrival, and began a series of "grand entertainments" at his 
house in Pall Mall.f Of this young gentleman, Sterne liked 
to write familiarly, as if he were, as was likely true, a 
favourite guest. "The Duke of York", he casually remarked 
in a letter to Lord Fauconberg, "was to have had a play- 
house of his own, and had studied his part in the Fair 
Penitent, and made Garrick act it twice on purpose to profit 
by it ; but the King, 'tis said, has desired the Duke to give up 



Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, I, 185-90 (Boston, 1829). Sterne's "A. 
Esq.", as his name appears in the published correspondence between 
the two friends, can not be identified positively with this Arthur Lee; 
but the fact that both Sterne and the Virginian were associating mti 
mately with Wilkes and Shelburne renders the identification very 
probable. 

* Whitcfoord Papers, 235. 

* Lloyd's Evening Post, Jan. 2-5, and 5-7, 1767. 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 395 

the part and the project with it." Though the duke indeed 
stopped work on his own play-house in the palace, Sterne 
nevertheless had an opportunity of seeing him play Lothario 
to Lady Stanhope's Calista at the private theatre of their 
friends the Delavals.* At the Duke of York's table the 
humourist met the Earl of March, better known in social 
annals by his subsequent title, the Duke of Queensberry, or 
"old Q", as he was called in his age, after fifty brilliant 
years in the service of pleasure. The earl was a small, keen- 
eyed man of hot temper, at that time one of the lords of his 
Majesty's bedchamber. With this nobleman and "a large 
company of the Duke of York 's people ' ', Sterne dined on the 
eighth, before going to the theatre to see the king; but the 
conversation seems to have fallen short of his expectations; 
for ' ' I came away ' ', said the guest, ' ' just as wise as I went. ' ' 
The acquaintance with the Earl of March never led to any 
intimacy. 

It was, however, in this set that Sterne most likely 
discovered, soon after coming to London, Commodore James, 
a friend who will pass from these memoirs only with the 
death of the author. As a boy, William James had an 
adventurous career on the Spanish Main, which prepared 
him for one still more adventurous in the Bombay marine 
service. Under his command, the sea was swept of pirates 
which had long imperilled the trade of the East India Com- 
pany. With reckless daring, says the historian Orme,f he 
pushed his ships into the very harbours of the pirate-chief 
Angria — first at Severndroog and then at Gheriah — and 
blew up fortifications which were supposed impregnable. 
And when news reached Bombay early in 1757 that the 
French had declared war against England, he was chosen 
of all others to carry it on to Clive, then in the valley of the 
Hooghly. He made the voyage up the Bay of Bengal against 
the northeast monsoon in an incredibly short time, by dis- 
covering a passage which thereafter rendered winter naviga- 
tion of the bay free from great danger. With a fortune 

*Walpole, Letters, edited by Toynbee, VII, 112. 

f A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in 
India, I, 411-14 (Fourth edition, London, 1799). The first edition of 
the first volume appeared in 1763. 



396 LAURENCE STERNE 

won in prize-money, Commodore James returned to England 
in 1759, married a most attractive wife — Anne, daughter of 
Edmond Goddard of Hartham in Wiltshire — and purchased 
a villa at Eltham within easy reach of London. Orme's story 
of his exploits brought him into quick notice. He became 
chairman of the board of directors of the East India Com- 
pany; and the king subsequently honoured him with a 
baronetcy. 

When Sterne knew him, the commodore was living for 
the winter in one of the large houses in Gerrard Street, Soho, 
suitable for the entertainments expected of him, and for the 
reception of visitors from India, who seem to have imposed 
upon his hospitality. His wife was a woman of fine man- 
ners and character, very fond of a pretty daughter that 
reminded Sterne of his own child as she had been in past 
years. Once admitted into the family circle, Sterne let no 
Sunday pass, unless ill health prevented, without dining 
with his dear friends in Gerrard Street. After one of these 
visits, he wrote to Lydia : " I wish I had you with me — and I 
would introduce you to one of the most amiable and gentlest 
of beings, whom I have just been with, * * * a Mrs. James, 

the wife of as worthy a man as I ever met with 1 esteem 

them both. He possesses every manly virtue honour and 

bravery are his charaeteristicks, which have distinguished 

him nobly in several instances 1 shall make you better 

acquainted with his character, by sending Orme's History, 

with the books you desired and it is well worth your 

reading; for Orme is an elegant writer, and a just one; he 

pays no man a compliment at the expence of truth. 

Mrs. James is kind — and friendly — of a sentimental turn of 
mind — and so sweet a disposition, that she is too good for 

the world she lives in Just God ! if all were like her, what 

a life would this be ! ' ' Nothing ever occurred to disturb this 
friendship, which continued to the last dismal scene. 

Dinners and social functions, so necessary to Sterne's 
enjoyment, were checked by the snows of January, which 
covered England two or three feet deep. "When we got up 
yesterday morning", he wrote to Lord Fauconberg on the 
ninth, "the streets were four inches deep in snow it has 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TRISTRAM SHANDY 397 

set in now with the most intense cold. I could scarse lay in 
bed for it, and this morning more snow again." And at the 
end of a week, when wild rumours of accidents and sufferings 
had reached London: " There is a dead stagnation of every- 
thing, and scarse any talk but about the damages done over 
the Kingdom by this cruel storm. * * # We had reports 
yesterday that the York stage coach with fourteen people 
in and about it, were drown 'd by mistaking a bridge — it 
was contradicted at night — as are half the morning reports 
in town." During the progress of the storm, while most 
people were content to remain indoors and wait for the 
inevitable thaw, Sterne ploughed through snow up to his 
knees, on an " intensely cold" Sunday morning, to the king's 
levee and afterwards on to church, where to his disappoint- 
ment few were found in either place. At length a thaw set 
in, the streets became passable, though filled with slush, and 
everybody who could obtain a ticket, turned out on the night 
of the fifteenth for Mrs. Cornelys's great assembly, the first 
of the year. 

This was just then the most fashionable resort in Lon- 
don. "All the high and low demireps of the town", says 
Thackeray's Barry Lyndon, "gathered there, from his Grace 
of Ancaster down to my countryman, poor Mr. Oliver Gold- 
smith the poet, and from the Duchess of Kingston down to 
the Bird of Paradise." The woman who called herself Mrs. 
Theresa Cornelys had been long known under other names, 
as an operatic singer in London and continental theatres. 
Abandoning the stage in 1760, she purchased Carlisle House 
in Soho, which she turned into an assembly for a "society 
of ladies and gentlemen" with herself as manager. Little 
noticed at first, the enterprise flourished beyond expectation, 
so that she was able to enlarge and redecorate the mansion, 
hanging the "vast" assembly room with blue satin and the 
rest of the suite with yellow. At appointed times, widely 
advertised in the newspapers, Mrs. Cornelys opened her 
house to "the nobility and gentry" for "a grand concert of 
vocal and instrumental music", to be followed by "a grand 
ball", before and after which were served "tea, coffee, 
chocolate, and other refreshments". All details of these 



398 LAURENCE STEENE 

famous nights were planned and carried ont under the per- 
sonal direction of the hostess herself. " Those Ladies and 
Gentlemen", ran the usual advertisement on the day before 
an assembly, "who come in carriages * * * are requested 
to be very particular in ordering their coachmen to the door 
in Soho-square, and with their horses' heads towards Greek 

Street; chairs to the usual door. The tickets (which are 

limited as to number) will be delivered out this day at 
Arthur's in St. James's Street, and at the office in Soho- 
square, at a guinea each, which will admit one gentleman 
or two ladies. * * * The house will be opened precisely at 
nine."* So great was the demand for tickets, though rather 
expensive, that they could hardly be obtained either for love 
or for money. But Sterne, who had means of finding one 
where others complained of failure, made the acquaintance 
this year of Mrs. Cornelys, the professional entertainer of 
rank and royalty. The next morning he wrote to Lord 
Fauconberg briefly but enthusiastically of the occasion, add- 
ing a word relative to his patron's brother and family: 

"Last night it thaw'd; the concert at Soho top full and 

was (this is for the ladies) the best assembly and the best 
concert I ever had the honour to be at. Lady Anne had the 
goodness to challenge me, or I had not known her, she was 
so prudently muffled up; Lord Bellasyse, I never saw him 
look so well ; Lady Bellasyse recovers a marveille — and your 
little niece I believe grows like flax." 

The literary event for people who frequented Carlisle 
House was the appearance of the ninth and last volume of 
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, on 
Friday, January 30, 1767.1 The two-shilling pamphlet, 
authenticated by the humourist's signature over the first 
chapter, had as motto a sentence which Burton attributed 
to Scaliger when beseeching Cardan not to censure him if his 
treatise seemed too light: "Si quid urbaniuscule lusum a 
nobis, per Musas et Charitas et omnium poetarum Numina, 
Oro te, ne me male capias. "% As in the first instalment of his 

* Public Advertiser, March 30, 1767. 

\ St. James's Chronicle, Jan. 29-31, 1767. 

t Anatomy of Melancholy, edited by Shilleto, III, 9. Charitas is> of 
course, a misprint for Charites. 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 399 

book, the author again linked his name with Pitt's, in "A 
Dedication to a Great Man", saying prettily, in allusion to 
the statesman 's recent elevation to the peerage under the title 
of Earl of Chatham: "My opinion of Lord ******* 
is neither better nor worse, than it was of Mr. * * * . 
Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and 
local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will 
pass all the world over without any other recommendation 
than their own weight." A few chapters on, Sterne gave his 
parting thrust to Warburton, his old friend and enemy, by 
expressing the hope that Tristram Shandy, now completed, 
would "swim down the gutter of time" along with A Tale 
of a Tub and The Divine Legation of Moses. 

A fortnight after publication, Sterne informed Panchaud 
that the last volume of Tristram Shandy was liked the best 
of all by his friends, and requested him, giving thereby an 
index of brisk sale, to remit a hundred louis to his wife at 
Marseilles. The conclusion of my uncle Toby's amours, we 
can well understand, with its nice approaches to forbidden 
ground, though never quite reaching there, hit exactly the 
tone of society for which the book was written. To their 
heart's content, author and reader moved together in these 
pages, to use Coleridge's expression, through a sort of moral 
twilight, which is neither light nor darkness. But by the 
outside public, whose hearts had been corrected by Yorick's 
sermons and the death of Le Fever, Sterne was reprobated 
in no uncertain language, save for thankfulness that my uncle 
Toby had been brought through a severe ordeal, unharmed by 
the wiles of Mrs. Wadman. "Censor", for example, charged 
Sterne, in Lloyd's Evening Post for March 11-13, with ex- 
hausting the salacious wit of England, France, and Spain 
("where he has been to recruit"), and with now ransacking 
"poor old antiquity" as the only storehouse left for him. 
"Surely", concluded Censor, "our Spiritual Eulers must 
frown at these things." Likewise appeared in the Public 
Ledger of March 30, a communication from "Davus", call- 
ing upon the Church to intervene. After reading the last 
article, a group of strangers actually prepared and sent to 
the Archbishop of York a long letter leading up to a hint 



400 LAUBENCE STEENE 

that Sterne be unfrocked. The anonymous letter, dated 
March 30, 1767, and signed by "several", began and closed 
as follows: 

"Several well wishers to your Grace, and to religion and 
the cause of virtue, modesty, and decency, think it a duty 
incumbent on them, consistently with that regard they have 
for them, as well as order and right conduct, to refer your 
Grace to a letter, signed Davus, in the 'Public Ledger'' of 
this day, very justly, as they humbly think, animadverting 
on the scandal they have long taken and oftener conceived 
at the works of 'Tristram Shandy', as written by a clergy- 
man and a dignified one, uncensured by his superiors. They 
harbour no malice or private peek against him, having no 
personal knowledge of him or view by this; but are moved 
merely by indignation on seeing the above letter. * * * No 
conduct * * * surely more deserves a censure. But whether 
private or public, your Grace is best judge of. The former 
probably has been bestowed in vain, and the latter may have 
a bad effect, by increasing curiosity; yet, perhaps somewhat 
more than frowns or contempt should be done, that such 
scandal should no longer exist, or religion and the clergy will 
be no gainers by it. ' ' 

The letter was duly received by Archbishop Drummond, 
who found nothing to censure, so far as we know, in the con- 
duct of Sterne, always a most welcome visitor at Bishop- 
thorpe. The old charge of impropriety which was urged by 
the anonymous correspondents, had grown stale with the 
monthly critics, who were now inclined to accept Sterne in 
the character of Harlequin or the English Eabelais. "We 
wish", said the Critical Review of the last volume in Feb- 
ruary, "that it had been a little better accommodated to the 
ear of innocence, virginibus puerisque; but, perhaps, of all 
the authors who have existed since the days of Eabelais, none 
can with more justice than Tristram put his arms a-kimbo, 
strut through his room and say, 'None but myself can be my 
parallel.' " The pages which Sterne left blank were also 
thought diverting. The author had played with this jest 
before, but in a different manner. According to the earlier 
device, the reader was invited to fill in the blank pages with 



THE LAST VOLUME OF TEISTEAM SHANDY 401 

whatever he might wish in the way of narrative and com- 
ment; while in this case Sterne affected to be unable to 
compose, when he came to them, the most interesting parts of 
my uncle Toby 's courtship ; and so they were deferred until 
he should be in the mood for them. At length he returned 
to the missing chapters, and thus succeeded in the feat of 
writing a book backwards. 

Exclusive of my uncle Toby, the volume contained two 
or three pieces of eloquence that arrested the attention of all 
who read. Jenny, who had appeared in the first instalment 
seven years before, as a slight and uncertain shadow of Miss 
Fourmantelle, reappeared for an apostrophe to time, which 
brings all things to an end. Commonplace as the thought is, 
Sterne, who felt the nearness of death, lifted it into the 
realm of poetic beauty. " Every letter I trace tells me", he 
concluded, "with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the 
days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than 
the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like 

light clouds of a windy day, never to return more every 

thing presses on whilst thou art twisting that lock, 

see ! it grows grey ; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid 
adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to 

that eternal separation which we are shortly to make. 

Heaven have mercy upon us both!" Then there was that 
invocation, unsurpassed outside of Fielding, to the "Gentle 
Spirit of sweetest humour, who erst did sit upon the easy 
pen of my beloved Cervantes ' ' ; which glided into ' ' They 
were the sweetest notes I ever heard", and the whole musical 
episode of the distressed maid of Moulins. These were the 
purple passages which went far and wide through magazines 
and newspapers. 

The story of Maria, unconnected with all the rest, may be 
regarded, if we do not press the point too literally, as an 
advertisement of the Sentimental Journey. Though Sterne 
was in London for pleasure, he was there for business also. 
The Sentimental Journey, which had been in his mind the 
previous summer, was clearly delayed a year, that he might 
prepare the way for its publication by talk about it and a 
preliminary list of subscribers. Nothing could have served 

26 



402 LAUEENCE STEENE 

his purpose better, whether the act were premeditated or not, 
than his slipping into Tristram Shandy an episode of his 
forthcoming travels, in precisely the same manner as he gave 
the public a taste of Yorick's sermons years before, when he 
let Trim read one to Dr. Slop. It may take something from 
the dignity of literature to imagine Sterne availing himself 
of the Duke of York's entertainments or of Mrs. Cornelys's 
assemblies to recruit his purse, but such was an old custom 
not quite dead in the days of the third George. So successful 
was the author in his solicitations that he could write to 
Panchaud on the thirteenth of February: "I am going to 

publish a Sentimental Journey through France and Italy 

the undertaking is protected and highly encouraged by all 
our noblesse — 'tis subscribed for, at a great rate — 'twill be 
an original — in large quarto — the subscription half a guinea 

If you can procure me the honour of a few names of 

men of science, or fashion, I shall thank you they will 

appear in good company, as all the nobility here almost have 
honoured me with their names." Before the winter was 
over, Sterne had a vision of a thousand guineas from his 
new book. 

To judge from the list as it appeared the next year, few 
were approached who failed to permit Sterne to take down 
their names, though a letter to Sancho points to some labour 
over gathering in the scattered half-guineas. After thank- 
ing the negro for leaving at his lodgings several subscriptions 
of the Montagu family, Sterne reminded him that the 
transaction was only half completed: "You have something 
to add, Sancho, to what I owe your good-will also on this 
account, and that is to send me the subscription money, which 
I find a necessity of dunning my best friends for before I 

leave town to avoid the perplexities of both keeping 

pecuniary accounts (for which I have very slender talents), 
and collecting them (for which I have neither strength of 
body or mind) and so, good Sancho, dun the Duke of Mon- 
tagu, the Duchess of Montagu, and Lord Montagu for their 
subscriptions, and lay the sin, and money with it too, at my 
door." 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 

MAECH— OCTOBEE 1767 

In the Anglo-Indian society which gathered round the 
Jameses, Sterne met the Eliza of the Sentimental Journey, 
the one great passion of his life, shining through a decade of 
flirtations. At first sight, Eliza appeared to him as a rather 
plain young woman who affected the air and simper of fine 
ladies bent upon conquest; but the story of her misfortunes, 
as he heard it from Mrs. James, awakened his compassion; 
he began to study her face and eyes under more favourable 
conditions, much as my uncle Toby did the widow Wadman's; 
and then all was over with Yorick's poor, weak heart. "Not 
Swift", he was soon writing to her, "so loved his Stella, 
Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Sacharissa, as I will 
love and sing thee, my wife elect ! All those names, eminent 
as they are, shall give place to thine, Eliza." 

The woman whom Sterne placed among the famous 
presences which poets and men of letters have felt in their 
work was Elizabeth, wife of Daniel Draper, who since his 
youth had held various appointments in the service of the 
East India Company. She belonged to the Sclaters originally 
of Slaughter, in Gloucestershire, where they had been lords of 
the manor for three centuries.* Prom various branches 
of the family which took root in the neighbouring shires 
and in northern England, came a line of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge men distinguished as scholars and divines. The head 
of the family is now Lord Basing of Hoddington, near Odiham 
in Hampshire, whose father, George Sclater-Booth, the poli- 
tician, was elevated to the peerage on his succession to the 

* The story of Mrs. Draper 's early life and of her family is based 
upon her letters and other unpublished material now at Hoddington, 
eked out by accessible genealogies like Burke's Peerage, 

403 



404 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Hampshire estates. Going back to the eighteenth century, 
Christopher Sclater, Vicar of Loughton and Chingford by 
Epping Forest, married Elizabeth, daughter of John May, 
Esq., of Worting, Hants. Of their thirteen children, the 
fifth son, May Sclater, born October 29, 1719, became the 
father of Sterne's Eliza. When a young man, May Sclater 
went out to India, where he married a Miss Whitehill, whose 
father and uncle were likewise in the India service. Of the 
marriage were born three daughters while the family was 
living on the Malabar Coast, at Anjengo and other factories 
of the East India Company, — Elizabeth, who gave as her 
birthday October 5, 1744, and her younger sisters, Mary and 
Louisa. After growing into girlhood among the Malabars, 
of whom Elizabeth became very fond, the children were all 
sent to England for their education under the protection of 
the Sclaters. Their mother seems to have died when they 
were very young, and the father perhaps saw none of them 
out of their teens. While in England, Elizabeth apparently 
stayed much in London with her aunt Elizabeth, a prim 
woman, married to Dr. Thomas Pickering, Vicar of St. 
Sepulchre's, a kindly humourist, who appreciated the girl's 
smartness. But she liked best her cousins Tom and Bess, 
the children of her uncle Kichard of Hoddington, the present 
seat of the family. Between her and Tom existed, so her 
letters read, rather more than cousinly affection. "All my 
kin's folk", she wrote to him after the mistake of her mar- 
riage, "are in comparison of thee, as trifling * * * as my 
little finger in comparison to my two bright eyes." 

The girl, already vain, I fancy, of her bright eyes and 
round face, was placed in some school for the "frivolous 
education" accorded to "girls destined for India". "The 
generality of us", she said in sorrowful retrospect, "* * * 
were never instructed in the importance of any thing, but 
one worldly point, that of getting an establishment of the 
lucrative kind, as soon as possible, a tolerable complection, 
an easy manner, some degree of taste in the adjustment of 
our ornaments, some little skill in dancing a minuet, and 
singing an air." Having received no training in "useful em- 
ployments", she returned, in the autumn of 1757, to India, 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 405 

from which she had been away long enough to be struck by 
novel sights and customs. Her father was then settled at 
Bombay, in the best house of the city, "where a great deal 
of company", she wrote, "comes every day after dinner". 
Among these guests was Daniel Draper, a promising official 
of the East India Company, to whom she was married on the 
twenty-eighth of the following July, when not yet fourteen 
years old. Her husband, her elder by full twenty years, was 
near akin, brother or cousin, to Sir William Draper, who 
captured Manila and otherwise distinguished himself in the 
East. The year after her marriage, Daniel Draper was 
appointed Secretary to the Government at Bombay, where 
he was stationed mostly, save for short intervals at Surat and 
Tellicherry, during the rest of his life in India. His faithful 
services were eventually rewarded by a seat in the Council 
and the post of Accountant General. If a somewhat heavy 
official, he was described by a friend and admirer as " a very 
mild and good-humoured man".* There was nothing unusual 
about the Draper marriage, which now seems so ill-sorted in 
respect to age; and we may suppose that neither husband 
nor wife found it too uncomfortable. A son was born in 
1759, and two years afterwards a daughter named for her 
mother — the Eliza or Betsey of several tender letters. In 
1765, the Drapers brought their children to England that 
they might be given an English education. After travelling 
about for several months in visits to their relatives and to 
various watering-places as far north as Scarborough, Draper 
went back to Bombay, leaving his wife in England to see the 
children established in school and to recover her health, which 
had been weakened by child-bearing and the heats of India. 
The children were fixed in school at Salt Hill with or near 
an aunt on her mother's side, while Mrs. Draper moved about 
pleasantly among the Sclaters and Whitehills, still having 
most regard for Tom, now Thomas Mathew Sclater, heir to 
Hoddington. As the intimate friend of Mrs. James, she 
made a wide circle of friends, which included, besides the 
Anglo-Indians coming and going, families like the Nunehams 

* David Price, Memoirs * * * of a Field Officer of the Indian Army, 
61 (London, 1831). y ' 



406 LAURENCE STERNE 

of Nuneham Hall, Oxford, among whom she was known, 
because of her beauty and free attractive manners, as the 
belle Indian. Everybody in the intimacy of the James house- 
hold — Lord Ossory as well as John Dillon, Esq. — seems to 
have liked and flattered her ; one admirer telling her that she 
ought to go on the stage, and another that her forte was 
literature. To say truth, her conversation, if we may judge 
from her letters, readily caught the accent of sentimental 
society. Although a mere girl, she had read widely in the 
poets and essayists of the Queen Anne period ; she quoted her 
authors aptly, and quickly developed under Sterne's influence 
into a Blue-Stocking. 

The first meeting between Sterne and Mrs. Draper took 
place soon after the author reached London in January, 1767 ; 
if we may imagine it so, at one of the Sunday dinners in 
Gerrard Street. Advances beyond casual acquaintance were 
made by Sterne a fortnight or so later, when he sent Mrs. 
Draper a full set of his works accompanied by the following 
letter : 

' 'Eliza will receive my books with this. The sermons 

came all hot from the heart. 1 wish that I could give them 

any title to be offered to yours. The others came from the 

head 1 am more indifferent about their reception. 

"I know not how it comes about, but I'm half in love 

with you 1 ought to be wholly so for I never valued 

(or saw more good qualities to value) or thought more of one 
of your sex than of you ; so adieu. Yours faithfully, if not 
affectionately, L. Sterne." 

Mrs. Draper, honoured by the attentions of an author 
whom all the polite world was courting, met her admirer half 
way. In return for the familiar Eliza, she was soon referring 
to him as Yorick, "the mild, generous, and good", or calling 
him by a pretty fancy her Bramin, the source of all wisdom. 
The new title, lifting him into the spiritual caste of India, 
pleased Sterne, who repaid the compliment by addressing 
Eliza as his Bramine, or counterpart in the knowledge of the 
heart. "With no thought of concealing their sentimental 
attachment as it grew apace, Mrs. Draper sent a copy of 
Sterne's letter to her cousin Tom, and Sterne wrote to his 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 407 

daughter Lydia of his "dear friend". They visited places 
of amusement together or with Mrs. James, dined tete-a-tete 
at Sterne's lodgings in Bond Street, and made excursions 
to Salt Hill and Enfield Wash to visit the Draper children. 
Every morning there passed between them letters arranging 
for the disposal of their day or announcing the peremptory 
call of other engagements. Wherever Sterne went to dine, 
Mrs. Draper was "the star that conducted and enliven 'd the 
discourse". At Lord Bathurst's, says one of Sterne's letters, 
"I talked of thee an hour without intermission with so much 
pleasure and attention, that the good old Lord toasted your 
health three different times ; and now he is in his eighty-fifth 
year, says he hopes to live long enough to be introduced as a 
friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her eclipse all 
other nabobesses as much in wealth, as she does already in 

exterior and (what is far better) in interior merit. 1 hope 

so too. This nobleman is an old friend of mine. You 

know he was always the protector of men of wit and genius ; 
and has had those of the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, 
Swift, Prior, &c. &c. always at his table." On these occa- 
sions Sterne sometimes took along a letter or two of Eliza's, 
from which he read scraps to his more intimate friends, who, 
like himself, found the style "new" and the sentiments 
"very good and very elegantly expressed". "Who taught 
you", asked the flatterer, "the art of writing so sweetly, 

Eliza? You have absolutely exalted it to a science!" 

For further inspiration, he gave Mrs. Draper his portrait, 
which she placed over her writing-desk; and in return she 
sat for him, it would seem, to Cosway, the famous miniaturist. 
The little portrait of Mrs. Draper, apparently a miniature, in 
which she appeared simply dressed as a vestal, without her 
usual adornments of "silks, pearls, and ermines", Sterne 
showed to half the town, and communed with it alone in the 
quiet of Bond Street, whence he wrote to Mrs. Draper on a 
morning when at the height of his infatuation: "Your 
eyes and the shape of your face (the latter the most perfect 
oval I ever saw) * * * are equal to any of God's works in 
a similar way, and finer than any I beheld in all my travels. ' ' 
While Sterne was thus cantering up and down deliciously 



408 LAUEENCE STEENE 

with his passion, Mrs. Draper was suddenly prostrated by a 
letter from her husband asking for her immediate return 
to India. The news of her illness came as a shock to Sterne 
on a February morning when, on making his usual call, he 
was told by the house-maid that Mrs. Draper was not well 
enough to receive him. After passing a sleepless night, he 
despatched a note in remonstrance the next day, saying in 
part : ' ' Remember, my dear, that a friend has the same right 
as a physician. The etiquettes of this town (you'll say) say 

otherwise. No matter! Delicacy and propriety do not 

always consist in observing their frigid doctrines." For six 
weeks thereafter, the frigid doctrines of the town being 
neglected, Sterne watched Mrs. Draper through her illness 
and convalescence, so fearful at times of the issue that he 
prepared an elegy upon her in case it should be needed. 
"She has a tender frame", he wrote to Lydia, copying out 
the verses, "and looks like a drooping lily, for the roses are 
fled from her cheeks 1 can never see or talk to this incom- 
parable woman without bursting into tears 1 have a 

thousand obligations to her, and I owe her more than her 

whole sex, if not all the world put together She has a 

delicacy in her way of thinking that few possess our con- 
versations are of the most interesting nature, and she talks 
to me of quitting this world with more composure than others 

think of living in it. 1 have wrote an epitaph, of which 

I send thee a copy. 'Tis expressive of her modest worth — 

but may heav 'n restore her ! and may she live to write mine. 

'Columns, and labour 'd urns but vainly shew 
An idle scene of decorated woe. 
The sweet companion, and the friend sincere, 
Need no mechanic help to force the tear. 

'In heart-felt numbers, never meant to shine 
'Twill flow eternal o'er a hearse like thine; 
'Twill flow, whilst gentle goodness has one friend, 
Or kindred tempers have a tear to lend. ' ' ' 

Mrs. Draper's other friends likewise sympathised keenly 
with the distress of a young woman who must leave her chil- 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 409 

dren and go back to a husband for whom she had no affection, 
and to a dull life which offered no scope for her talents. 
In short, nothing but the duty of the wife to her husband 
under the law called her oversea to India. Her father, it 
must be inferred from the silence of her letters at this period, 
had been dead for several years; and in the career of her 
favourite sister, the unhappy woman read her own fate. 
Mary, or Polly as the family called her, was like Mrs. Draper 
a girl of gay and lively spirits, who jested with her uncle 
Thomas while lighting his pipe for him in the seclusion of 
St. Sepulchre's. After the usual trivial education, she also 
returned to India, to become the wife of Rawson Hart 
Boddam of Bombay. For two years she bore up against the 
enervating climate and childbirth until she became a shadow 
of her former self, and then died under most melancholy cir- 
cumstances. Of all Mrs. Draper's friends, none — except an 
unnamed family, perhaps the Pickerings — was disposed to 
criticise her reluctance to run the risks of India in her present 
condition; and yet none could quite venture the advice that 
she disobey her husband. At the last moment, however, when 
Mrs. Draper again fell ill, Sterne went so far as to say : ' ' Put 

off all thoughts of returning to India this year. 

Write to your husband — tell him the truth of your case. 

If he is the generous, humane man you describe him 

to be, he cannot but applaud your conduct." If the expense 
of another year in England would be troublesome, he de- 
clared in an exalted mood of generosity, that he stood ready 
to subscribe his whole subsistence, and then sequester his 
livings, if necessary, rather than see such "a creature * * * 
sacrificed for the paltry consideration of a few hundreds". 
Should Mrs. Draper wish it, his wife and daughter might be 
summoned over to take her with them to the south of France, 
where he himself could join them for a winter in Florence 
and Naples. 

However sincere Sterne's proposals may have been, they 
were clearly impracticable. Though his attachment to Mrs. 
Draper may have caused, except in the case of one nameless 
family, no adverse comment among those who understood the 
relation between them, it was yet quite impossible for Sterne 



410 LAURENCE STERNE 

to take under the protection of his purse another man's wife. 
Such a course would not have been tolerated by public 
opinion, lenient as it was outside of a few strict conventions. 
So it was settled that Mrs. Draper should sail for India on 
the Earl of Chatham, which was expected to leave Deal, 
weather permitting, early in April. In the meantime little 
presents passed between Mrs. Draper and her friends. For 
Mrs. James and the Nunehams, as well as for Sterne, she had 
her portrait painted in the dress and attitude each most 
admired. Besides the "sweet sentimental picture" left with 
Sterne, she presented him with "a gold stock buccle and 
buttons", which he rated above rubies, because they had been 
fitted to him by the hand of friendship and thereby conse- 
crated forever. At last came the farewell visit to the chil- 
dren, whom Mrs. Whitehill generously offered to take under 
her personal charge. "God preserve the poor babies", 
wrote Mrs. Draper, "and may they live to give satisfaction 
to their parents — and reflect honour on their amiable 
protectress ! ' ' 

In order to make the necessary preparation for a long 
voyage, Mrs. Draper took post-chaise for Deal some ten days 
in advance of the probable sailing, in company with a Miss 
Light, who was going out to Madras to marry George Strat- 
ton, a councillor of the East India Company. Sterne, as he 
records the parting scene, handed Mrs. Draper into the chaise 
and then turned away to his lodgings in anguish of spirit, 
never to see his friend again, unless perchance he made a 
visit to the seaport the next week with the Jameses. For a 
day or two he lay ill of another hemorrhage, during the fever 
of which he fancied that Mrs. Draper returned just as he 
was dying, clasped him by the knees, and raising her "fine 
eyes", bade him be of comfort. None the less for his weak- 
ness, he sent Mrs. Draper every morning a letter directing 
her movements as if present and arranging from a distance 
many little details of her cabin. A pianoforte which she 
took along with her to Deal, proving to be, as soon as set up, 
out of tune, Sterne purchased for her a hammer and pliers, 
and told her to tune the instrument from her guitar that it 
might again vibrate sweet comfort to their hopes. "I have 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 411 

bought you", says the letter further, "ten handsome brass 
screws, to hang your necessaries upon: I purchased twelve; 
but stole a couple from you to put up in my own cabin, at 

Coxwould 1 shall never hang, or take my hat off one of 

them, but I shall think of you. * * * I have written, also, to 
Mr. Abraham Walker, pilot at Deal, that I had dispatched 
these in a packet, directed to his care; which I desired he 
would seek after, the moment the Deal machine arrived. I 
have, moreover, given him directions, what sort of an arm- 
chair you would want, and have directed him to purchase the 
best that Deal could afford, and take it, with the parcel, in 
the first boat that went off. Would I could, Eliza, so supply 
all thy wants, and all thy wishes." With these and similar 
tokens of friendship went much advice as to Mrs. Draper's 
conduct on shipboard, which, though variously phrased, was 
always pitched to the following key: "Be cautious * * * 
my dear, of intimacies. Good hearts are open, and fall 
naturally into them. Heaven inspire thine with fortitude, 
in this, and every deadly trial! Best of God's works, fare- 
well ! Love me, I beseech thee ; and remember me for ever ! 

* # # Adieu, adieu! and with my adieu let me give thee 

one streight rule of conduct, that thou hast heard from my 
lips in a thousand forms — but I concenter it in one word, 
Reverence Thyself. * * * Blessings, rest, and Hygeia go 
with thee! May'st thou soon return, in peace and affluence, 
to illumine my night ! I am, and shall be, the last to deplore 
thy loss, and will be the first to congratulate and hail thy 
return. ' ' 

The Earl of Chatham, with other outbound ships, set sail 
from Deal on Wednesday, April 3, 1767, under a brisk north- 
east wind which bore them quickly through the Channel.* 
At the point of departure, it was Mrs. Draper's hope that 
her husband would soon retire from the service, or at least 
permit his wife to revisit her friends and children in the 
course of a year or two. There were times also when Sterne 
encouraged her imagination to play with more distant con- 
tingencies, as in a curious summary of their attachment 

* Lloyd's Evening Post, April 3-6. 



412 LAUEENCE STEENE 

which he wrote out for her a few weeks later anent references 
to their passion in the Sentimental Journey: 

"I have brought", he said in a sketch which was to be 
submitted for her approval before it should be entrusted to 
posterity, CC I have brought your name Eliza! and Picture 
into my work— where they will remain — when you and I 

are at rest forever Some annotator or explainer of my 

works in this place will take occasion, to speak of the Friend- 
ship which subsisted so long and faithfully betwixt Yorick 

and the Lady he speaks of Her Name he will tell the 

world was Draper — a Native of India — married there to a 
gentleman in the India Service of that Name — who brought 
her over to England for the recovery of her health in the 
year '65 — where she continued to April the year 1767. It 
was about three months before her Return to India, That our 
Author's acquaintance and hers began. Mrs. Draper had a 
great thirst for knowledge — was handsome — genteel — en- 
gaging — and of such gentle dispositions and so enlighten 'd 

an understanding, That Yorick (whether he made much 

opposition is not known) from an acquaintance soon be- 
came her Admirer they caught fire, at each other at the 

same time and they would often say, without reserve to 

the world, and without any Idea of saying wrong in it, That 

their affections for each other were unbounded Mr. 

Draper dying in the year ***** this Lady return 'd to 

England, and Yorick the year after becoming a Widower 

they were married — and retiring to one of his Livings in 
Yorkshire, where was a most romantic Situation — they lived 
and died happily — and are spoke of with honour in the 
parish to this day." 

II 

Just before their separation, Sterne and Mrs. Draper 
spent a Saturday evening together in London, when or at 
another time it was agreed that each should keep an intimate 
journal in order that they might have "mutual testimonies 
to deliver hereafter to each other" on the glad day of their 
reunion. While Mrs. Draper was at Deal making ready for 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 413 

her voyage to India, Sterne sent her all that he had written ; 
and on the thirteenth of April he forwarded by a Mr. Watts, 
then departing for Bombay, a second instalment of his 
record. These two sections of Sterne's journal — and like- 
wise all of Mrs. Draper's, for we know that she kept one — 
have disappeared. The extant part begins on the thirteenth 
of April, 1767, and comes down to the fourth of August in 
the same year. The sudden break was occasioned by the 
expected return of Mrs. Sterne from France, the thought of 
whose presence, to say nothing of the reality of it, the author 
felt as a restraint upon his fancy. A postscript was added 
on the first of November announcing that Mrs. Sterne and 
Lydia, after some weeks with him at Coxwold, had just gone 
to York for the winter, while he himself was to remain at 
Shandy Hall to complete the Sentimental Journey. There 
were hints that the journal would be resumed as soon as the 
author reached town in the following January. But Sterne 
probably did not carry out his intention. At least nothing 
is known of a later effort. 

And what we have of the journal has lain until recently 
in hidden places. Sterne doubtless took the manuscript, as 
he thought of doing, with him to London in the winter of 
1767-68, where, we may fancy, it was discovered among his 
papers after death and turned over to the Jameses. Fav- 
ouring this surmise is the fact that when the journal came to 
light, it was in the company of two letters from Sterne to these 
friends, an unfinished scrawl from him to Eliza's husband, 
and a long "ship letter", amounting almost to an autobi- 
ography, from Mrs. Draper to Mrs. James. All these manu- 
scripts drifted into the library of a Mr. Gibbs of Bath, and 
upon his death, to a room set apart by the family for waste 
papers, old letters, and old commonplace books regarded as of 
no documentary value whatever. While playing in the room 
one day and looking about for paper "to cut up into spills 
to light candles with", Mr. Gibbs 's son Tom, a boy of eleven, 
popped upon the names of Yorick and Eliza, which he had 
seen before, and pulled out the journal and letters as too 
good for candle lighters. Sterne's letters may not be exactly 
adapted to the perusal of children, but had not this boy — 



414 LAURENCE STERNE 

Thomas Washbourne Gibbs — known his Sterne, the world 
would have lost a most illuminating document. Hearing in 
May 1751 that Thackeray was to include Sterne among his 
English Humourists, the second Mr. Gibbs sent the curious 
journal and other pieces up to the novelist for use in his 
famous portrait of Yorick. It is rather strange that Thack- 
eray, though he thanked Mr. Gibbs for the courtesy, then 
made no reference to the journal in his lecture on Sterne 
and Goldsmith, but reserved his private information for a 
terrific assault upon Sterne in a Roundabout several years 
later. Except for Thackeray's mere mention of the journal 
which had been lent him by ''a gentleman of Bath" (the 
passage was afterwards suppressed*), nothing was publicly 
known concerning the manuscripts until March, 1878, when 
Mr. Gibbs read before the Bath Literary Institution a paper 
on "Some Memorials of Laurence Sterne," the substance 
of which was printed in The Athenceum for March 30, 1878. 
On the death of Mr. Gibbs in 1894, the manuscripts passed 
under his bequest to the British Museum. The journal 
covers, besides an introductory note and a lone entry at the 
end, seventy-six pages of writing with about twenty-eight 
lines to the page, all in Sterne's own hand. The leaves are 
folio in size, and except in the case of the first and the last, 
both sides are written upon. As if designed for publication, 
the manuscript contains numerous blots and interlineations 
for better phrases, in addition to the introductory note, which 
was clearly framed to mystify the general reader, who in those 
days took pleasure in a preface like the following: 

"This Journal wrote under the fictitious names of Yorick 
and Draper — and sometimes of the Bramin and Bramine — 
but 'tis a Diary of the miserable feelings of a person sepa- 
rated from a Lady for whose Society he languish 'd The 

real Names — are foreigne — and the account a copy from a 

French Manuscript, — in Mr. S 's hands but wrote as 

it is, to cast a Viel [sic] over them There is a Counter- 
part — which is the Lady's account [of] what transactions 

* For the original passage, see C( A Roundabout Journey : Notes of 
a Week's Holiday" (Cornhill Magazine, November, 1860). Two letters 
from Thackeray to Gibbs are preserved with the Gibbs MSS. at the 
British Museum (Additional MSS., 34527). 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 415 

dayly happened — and what Sentiments occupied her mind, 
during this Separation from her admirer — —these are worth 
reading — —the translator cannot say so much in favour of 
Yorick's which seem to have little merit beyond their honesty 
and truth.' ' 

To vary Sterne's phrasing, the Journal to Eliza (as we 
may style the document with Swift's Journal to Stella in 
memory) is a record of personal incidents accompanied by 
the sensations and fancies that arose out of them day by day, 
sometimes hour by hour, in a mind losing its poise under the 
subtile influences of passion and disease. It is the emotional 
history lying behind and thus explaining in a measure the 
style, tone, and mood of the Sentimental Journey, of which 
the author regarded Mrs. Draper as the main inspiration. 
"Were your husband in England", he wrote to her at Deal 
while gazing at her portrait, "I would freely give him five 
hundred pounds (if money could purchase the acquisition), 
to let you only sit by me two hours in a day, while I wrote 
my Sentimental Journey. I am sure the work would sell 
so much the better for it, that I should be reimbursed the 
sum more than seven times told." In order to keep her 
image before him through the next months, he purchased 
charts and maps whereby he might follow her ship every 
day, wondering where she was and what she was doing; and 
when tired of this, he fell to imagining that she was still by 
him, talking to him, and overlooking his work. "I have 
you more in my mind than ever ' ', he wrote long weeks after- 
wards, "and in proportion as I am thus torn from your 

embraces 1 cling the closer to the Idea of you. Your 

Figure is ever before my eyes — the sound of your voice 
vibrates with its sweetest tones the live long day in my ear — 
I can see and hear nothing but my Eliza." 

The first pages of the journal are taken up with details 
of an illness which threatened to put an end to Sterne's life. 
Already "worn out both in body and mind" by a long stretch 
of dinners, Sterne completely broke down under the strain 
of Mrs. Draper's departure for India. "Poor sick-headed, 
sick-hearted Yorick ! " he exclaims, ' ' Eliza has made a shadow 
of thee! * * * how I shall rally my powers alarms me." 



416 LAURENCE STERNE 

Becovering sufficiently from his first hemorrhage to go about, 
he imprudently dined with Hall-Stevenson at the Brawn's 
Head on the twelfth of April and supped at the Demoniac's 
lodgings in the evening with "the whole Pandemonium 
assembled". For this indulgence he "paid a severe reckon- 
ing all the night", and "got up tottering and feeble" in the 
morning, resolved to dedicate the day (which was Sunday) 
"to Abstinence and reflection". At night came on a fever 
Which kept him in for two days more, during which he read 
over and over again Mrs. Draper's letters, filing them away; 
and dosed himself with Dr. James's Powder, a popular 
remedy of the period, which, so said the advertisements, would 
allay "any acute fever in a few hours though attended by 
convulsions". This nostrum, which Madame Pompadour 
took in her last illness and which was destined to kill poor 
Goldsmith a few years later, working differently upon Sterne, 
brought him to his feet for a day or two, so that he was able 
to set up his carriage in preparation for the journey home in 
a style suitable to his dignity. 

It was, however, very dangerous, as Sterne discovered, to 
go out immediately after taking a concoction so strongly 
diaphoretic in its action as was the mysterious powder. 
While trying his horses in the park — described as an "ex- 
ceeding good" pair when they were sold the next year — ■ 
he caught a severe cold, which sent him to bed "in the most 
acute pain". To satisfy his friends, he summoned two able 
members of the faculty — a physician and a surgeon — with 
whom there was a lively contention when the sick man 
learned their diagnosis of his case and the kind of treatment 
that it involved: 

"We will not reason about it, said the Physician, but you 

must undergo a course of Mercury. I'll lose my life first, 

said I — and trust to Nature, to Time — or at the worst — 

to Death. So I put an end with some Indignation to the 

Conference. * * * Now as the father of mischief would have 
it, who has no pleasure like that of dishonouring the right- 
eous — it so fell out, That from the moment I dismiss 'd my 
Doctors — my pains began to rage with a violence not to be 
express 'd, or supported every hour became more intol- 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 417 

lerable 1 was got to bed — cried out and raved the whole 

night — and was got up so near dead, That my friends in- 
sisted upon my sending again for my Physician and Surgeon. 

■ 1 told them upon the word of a man of Strict honour, 

They were both mistaken as to my case but tho' they had 

reason 'd wrong — they might act right." 

Thus brought to bay by sharp suffering, Sterne at once 
parted with twelve ounces of blood under the lancet of the 
eminent surgeon in order to quiet what was left in him. 
The next day the two gentlemen reappeared with a demand 
for more of Yorick 's thin blood ; and after their second visit 
his arm broke loose from their bandage, with the result that 
he nearly bled to death during the night before he was aware 
of the accident. All nourishment, including his four o'clock 
dish of tea, was denied him, with the exception of water- 
gruel, which he abhorred worse than the ass's milk he had 
drunk on former occasions. This lowering treatment, which, 
like the method practised by the famous Dr. Sangrado upon 
Spanish ecclesiastics, sought to displace the patient's blood 
with water, reduced Sterne to so great weakness that he 
momentarily feared that the breath which he was drawing 
would be the last for which he had strength. "I'm going", 
he wrote on a morning as he gasped out a farewell to Eliza, 

"I'm going "; but he was able to add as the day wore 

on, "Am a little better so shall not depart as I appre- 
hended." In spite of the prohibition, he managed to have, 
through the kindness of Molly the house-maid, his afternoon 
tea and soon his boiled fowl and ' ' dish of macaruls ' ', whereby 
he improved so rapidly that a week later "my Doctors", says 
the journal, "stroked their beards, and look'd ten per cent 
wiser upon feeling my pulse, and enquiring after my Symp- 
toms". As their final prescription, they insisted upon 
thrusting down his throat Van Swieten's Corrosive Mercury, 
as if they were bent upon sublimating him to "an ethereal 
substance". His doctors finally dismissed, he experimented 
on his own account with a French tincture called L'Extraite 
de Saturne, and ordered his carriage for a drive about town. 

In sickness as in health, Sterne was overwhelmed with 
attentions. Mrs. James, missing him at her Sunday dinner, 

27 



418 LAURENCE STERNE 

sent her maid to enquire after his health and to bid him 
preserve a life so valuable to herself and to Eliza. The 
next day forty people of fashion came to his bedside; and 
thereafter his room was "allways full of friendly Visitors ", 
and his "rapper eternally going with Cards and enquiries ". 
"I should be glad", was his comment, "of the Testimonies 

without the Tax." As soon as he could be helped into 

his carriage, he visited Mrs. James to thank her for her daily 
messages and to weep with her over the loss of Mrs. Draper. 
It was a scene of woe which better than all else lets the 
reader into the morbid state of the emotions that gave birth 
to the story of poor Maria in the Sentimental Journey: 

"Tears ran down her cheeks", wrote Sterne after the 
ordeal with Mrs. James was over, "when she saw how pale 

and wan I was never gentle creature sympathized more 

tenderly 1 beseech you, cried the good Soul, not to regard 

either difficulties or expences, but fly to Eliza directly 

I see you will dye without her save yourself for her 

how shall I look her in the face? What can I say to her, 
when on her return I have to tell her, That her Yorick is no 

more! Tell her my dear friend, said I, That I will meet 

her in a better world and that I have left this, because 

I could not live without her; tell Eliza, my dear friend, 

added I That I died broken hearted — and that you were 

a Witness to it. As I said this, she burst into the most 

pathetick flood of tears — that ever kindly Nature shed. 

You never beheld so affecting a Scene 'twas too much for 

Nature! Oh! she is good — I love her as my Sister! and 

could Eliza have been a witness, hers would have melted 
down to Death and scarse have been brought back, an Extacy 

so celestial and savouring of another world. 1 had like to 

have fainted, and to that Degree was my heart and soul, 
affected, it was with difficulty I could reach the street door; 
I have got home, and shall lay all day upon my Sopha — 
and to morrow morning my dear Girl write again to thee; 
for I have not strength to drag my pen." 

Three weeks were still necessary before Sterne felt strong 
enough to venture on the journey homewards. During the 
period of convalescence, with its frequent relapses from over- 



THE JOUBNAL TO ELIZA 419 

exertion, he occasionally dined with a friend or sat for an 
hour or two at Ranelagh, or drove on a morning through 
Hyde Park, where he encountered one day, as amusingly 
related in the journal, a former passion who was taking the 
air on horseback. In their flirtation, the unknown woman 
whom Mrs. Draper had supplanted in Yorick's affections, 
had figured fancifully as the Queen of Sheba who once came 
to Jerusalem with camels, spices, and gold, to prove the wis- 
dom of Solomon. Of the modern Sheba and Solomon, says 
the journal: 

"Got out into the park to day Sheba there on Horse- 
back; pass'd twice by her without knowing her — she stop'd 
the third time — to ask me how I did — I would not have ask'd 
you, Solomon ! said she, but your Looks affected me for you 'r 
half dead I fear 1 thank 'd Sheba very kindly, but with- 
out any emotion but what sprung from gratitude Love 

alas! was fled with thee Eliza! 1 did not think Sheba 

could have changed so much in grace and beauty Thou 

hadst shrunk poor Sheba away into Nothing, but a good 

natured girl, without powers or charms 1 fear your wife 

is dead; quoth Sheba. No, you don't fear it Sheba, said I, 

Upon my word Solomon ! I would quarrel with you, was 

you not so ill If you knew the cause of my Illness, Sheba, 

replied I, you would quarrel but the more with me You 

lie, Solomon! answered Sheba, for I know the Cause already 

— and am so little out of Charity with you upon it That 

I give you leave to come and drink Tea with me before you 
leave Town, * * * and so canter 'd away." 

Whether Sheba and Solomon enjoyed a dish of tea 
together before the latter left town, our narrative does not 
relate; but the visit was unlikely, for Sterne's last week in 
London was occupied with formal leave-takings among 
friends in higher station. To John Dillon, Esq., the "gentlest 
and best of souls ' ', was sent a pretty note congratulating him 
on his successful suit for the hand of a "fair Indian ", some 
friend of Eliza's, while himself must "go bootless home"; 
and to Mrs. Draper he wrote under the stimulant of the 
Extraite de Saturne a long letter, which was to go overland 
by way of Aleppo and Bussorah, that it might await her on 



420 LAUEENCE STEENE 

her arrival in India. During his illness had come an anxious 
enquiry from the Earl of Shelburne, Secretary of State for 
the Colonies, who was recruiting at Bath after the labours 
and levees of a hard season. In return Sterne thanked him 
for " numberless and unmerited civilities", and recast for 
his lordship's entertainment the whimsical account given in 
the journal of his troubles with the doctors. Finally, he 
attended Court on his last Sunday in town, and accepted 
invitations for large dinner parties from "seven or eight 
grandees", among whom was Lord Spencer, who presented 
him on the evening before his departure with "a grand 
Ecritoire of forty guineas". 

The last glimpse of Sterne in London this year occurs 
under date of Friday morning, the twenty-second of May, as 
he sat in his lodgings hurriedly scrawling off replies to fare- 
well messages which awaited him on his return from Lord 
Spencer's, while his chaise and horses stood outside ready 
to bear his "poor body to its legal settlement". "I am ill, 
very ill", he wrote at parting, "I languish most affeetingly 

1 am sick both soul and body." Owing to his extreme 

weakness, nearly seven days were required for a journey 
which travellers usually performed in two or three. Com- 
pletely exhausted by the time he drove into Newark on 
Saturday evening, he was compelled to remain over Sunday, 
whence was despatched, before setting forward, the follow- 
ing characteristic note to Hall-Stevenson, descriptive of his 
fatigues and his miserable condition on the road thus far: 

"Newark, Monday, ten o'clock in the morn. 

"My Dear Cousin, 1 have got conveyed thus far like 

a bale of cadaverous goods consigned to Pluto and company 

lying in the bottom of my chaise most of the route, upon 

a large pillow which I had the prevoyance to purchase before 

I set out 1 am worn out — but press on to Barnby Moor 

to night, and if possible to York the next. 1 know not 

what is the matter with me — but some derangement presses 

hard upon this machine still I think it will not be overset 

this bout. My love to Gilbert. We shall all meet from 

the east, and from the south, and (as at the last) be happy 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 421 

together My kind respects to a few. 1 am, dear Hall, 

truly yours, L. Sterne." 

Too ill to reach York on Tuesday, Sterne was forced to 
halt at Doncaster, where he passed two nights with the Arch- 
bishop of York, who was then staying at his house near the 
town. This was the first meeting between Sterne and Dr. 
Drummond since the anonymous letter from London asking 
that the profane parson be unfrocked. If any mention was 
made of the incident, it passed off in jest, for each was 
devoted to the other. "This good prelate", Sterne remarked 
in the journal, "who is one of our most refined Wits and 
the most of a gentleman of our order — oppresses me with his 

kindness he shews in his treatment of me, what he told 

me upon taking my Leave — that he loves me, and has a 

high Value for me his Chaplains tell me, he is perpetually 

talking of me and has such an opinion of my head and heart 
that he begs to stand Godfather for my next Literary pro- 
duction. " Without any reserves, Sterne showed the arch- 
bishop, his lady, and sister the portrait of Eliza, and related 
the story of his friendship with the original. Becoming a 
little stronger by Thursday, he drove through to Coxwold 
that day and went directly to bed on Van Swieten 's Corrosive 
Mercury. Only rest, temperance, and good hours, it proved, 
were needed to reinstate Sterne in his usual health and 
spirits. At the end of three weeks, he cast to the dogs the 
medicines which were tearing his frame to pieces, began to 
drink ass's milk, and concluded that he would not descend 
to Pluto for a year at least or, on a nearer reckoning as it 
turned out, until he had trailed his pen through the Senti- 
mental Journey. 

There were days when he felt as well as at any time since 
leaving college and when he looked forward to a summons 
from Mrs. Draper to meet her in the Downs and bring her 
home as his wife. In the meantime, whether for one or for 
five years, he would enjoy himself to the full, accepting, with 
resignation, health and sickness like the periodical returns of 
light and darkness. It is altogether a delightful picture 
which we have of Sterne as he settled into this mood for his 



422 LAUEENCE STEENE 

summer's task, varied by excursions with his friends. "I 
am in the Yale of Coxwould", he wrote in his journal to 
Eliza when summer was advancing, and similarly in a letter 
to his friend Arthur Lee, "and wish you saw in how princely 

a manner I live in it 'tis a Land of Plenty 1 sit down 

alone to Venison, fish or wild foul — or a couple of fouls — 
with curds, and strawberrys and cream, (and all the simple 

clean plenty which a rich Valley can produce, with a 

Bottle of wine on my right hand (as in Bond street) to 

drink your health 1 have a hundred hens and chickens 

about my yard and not a parishioner catches a hare, a 

rabbit or a Trout — but he brings it as an offering In 

short 'tis a golden Valley — and will be the golden Age when 
you govern the rural feast, my Bramine. " 

Anticipating the golden age, Sterne rearranged and re- 
decorated Shandy Hall — more in fancy, perhaps, than in 
fact — that it might become a fit habitation for its mistress. 
"I have this week finished", records the journal only ten 
days after Sterne's arrival, "a sweet little apartment which 
all the time it was doing, I flatter 'd the most delicious of 

Ideas, in thinking I was making it for you 'Tis a neat 

little simple elegant room, overlook 'd only by the Sun — 
just big enough to hold a Sopha; for us — a Table, four 

Chairs, a Bureau, and a Book case. They are to be all 

yours, Koom and all — and there Eliza ! shall I enter ten 

times a day to give thee Testimonies of my Devotion 

Was't thou this moment sat down, it would be the sweetest 
of earthly Tabernacles. " " 'Tis a little oblong room ' ', the 
narrative goes on into further details, "with a large Sash 
at the end — a little elegant fireplace — with as much room to 

dine around it, as in Bond street But in sweetness and 

Simplicity, and silence beyond any thing. Oh my Eliza! 

— I shall see thee surely Goddesse of this Temple, and the 

most sovereign one, of all I have — and of all the powers 
heaven has trusted me with." Off from the temple — or sit- 
ting room, to write plainer English — were to be other rooms 
dedicated to Mrs. Draper, adds the journal later in the 
season, saying: "I * * * am projecting a good Bed-chamber 
adjoing it, with a pretty dressing room for you, which 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 423 

connects them together — and when they are finish 'd, will 
be as sweet a set of romantic apartments, as you ever beheld 

the Sleeping room will be very large — The dressing room, 

thro' which you pass into your Temple, will be little — but 
Big enough to hold a dressing Table — a couple of chairs, 
with room for your Nymph to stand at her ease both behind 
and on either side of you — with spare Koom to hang a dozen 
petticoats — gowns, &c — and Shelves for as many Band- 
boxes. ' ' 

Mrs. Draper's apartments were to be enriched with many 
little gifts of Sterne's own devising, besides more costly 
presents from his friends, which would be placed in due time 
at her disposal. If she were a good girl, she might hang her 
cabinet with "six beautiful pictures" which he had just 
received from Eome of the "Sculptures upon poor Ovid's 
Tomb, who died in Exile, though he wrote so well upon the 
Art of Love ' ' ; and on her table might rest ' ' a most elegant 
gold snuff box" valued at forty guineas, which a gentleman 
— Sir George Macartney, it would seem, — was having fab- 
ricated for Sterne at Paris. On the outside was to be an 
inscription in Sterne's honour, and within the cover a por- 
trait of Eliza. In like manner Sterne adorned his study 
with numerous trinkets given him by Mrs. Draper as pledges 
of affection, never forgetting to take her portrait from his 
neck or pocket and to place it upon the table before him, that 
he might look into "her gentle sweet face", as he wrote of 
the fair Fleming, the beautiful grisette, or the heart-broken 
Maria. There were indeed moments bordering upon hallu- 
cination, when Mrs. Draper seemed to enter his study without 
tapping and quietly take a chair by his side, to overlook his 
work and talk low to him in counsel for hours together. At 
length the hallucination would pass, and the figure of Mrs. 
Draper would fade into a melancholy cat sitting and purring 
at his side, and looking up gravely into his face as if she 
understood the situation. "How soothable", remarked 
Sterne on one of these occasions, "my heart is, Eliza, when 
such little things sooth it! for in some pathetic sinkings I 

feel even some support from this poor Cat 1 attend to her 

purrings and think they harmonize me they are 



424 LAURENCE STERNE 

pianissimo at least, and do not disturb me. Poor Yorick! 

to be driven, with all his sensibilities, to these resources 

all powerful Eliza, that had this Magical authority over him, 
to bend him thus to the dust ! ' ' 

In one of his pathetic sinkings, Sterne so far lost self- 
control as to draft a letter (which was probably never sent) 
to Eliza's husband, hinting at better care of her health and 
explaining his interest in her. It was evidently a rather 
difficult exercise in composition, for Yorick begins a sentence, 
breaks it off, starts in anew, draws pen through word and 
phrase once more, and finally passes into chaos on arriving 
at the verge of a proposal that Mrs. Draper be permitted to 
return to England and live under his platonic protection. 
As well as can be made out, the curious letter was intended 
to run somewhat as follows: 

"I own it, Sir, that the writing a Letter to a gentleman I 

have not the honour to be known to a Letter likewise 

upon no kind [of] business (in the Ideas of the world) is a 
little out of the common course of Things but I'm so my- 
self and the Impulse which makes me take up my pen 

is out of the common way too — for [it] arises from the honest 
pain I should feel in avowing so great esteem and friendship 
as I do for Mrs. Draper, if I did not wish and hope to extend 

it to Mr. Draper also. I fell in Love with your Wife but 

tis a Love, you would honour me for for tis so like that I 

bear my own daughter, who is a good creature, that I scarse 

distinguish a difference betwixt it that moment would 

have been the last of my acquaintance with my friend (all 
worthy as she is). 

"I wish it had been in my power to have been of true 
use to Mrs. Draper at this Distance from her best Protector 

1 have bestowed a great deal of pains (or rather I should 

[say] pleasure) upon her head her heart needs none 

and her head as little as any Daughter of Eve's, and indeed 
less than any it has been my fate to converse with for some 

years God preserve her. 1 wish I could make myself 

of any service to Mrs. D. whilst she is in India and I in 

the world for worldly affairs I could be of none. 

"I wish you, dear Sir, many years happiness. Tis a 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 425 

part of my Litany to pray to heaven for her health and Life 

She is too good to be lost and I would out [of] pure zeal 

t[ake] a pilgrimage to Mecca to seek a Medicine."* 

Partly breaking from the obsession of Mrs. Draper's 
image, Sterne made several excursions during the summer. 
He was twice at Crazy Castle — a week near the end of June 
for recuperation, and three or four days midway in July, on 
a special summons to come over for a large party of "the 
most brilliant Wits of the Age", including, said the news- 
papers, Garrick and Colman the dramatist. While at Skelton, 
he dined with " Bombay-Lascelles ", an old acquaintance of 
Mrs. Draper as well as of himself, who, back from India, had 
taken a house two miles away; and there was "dining and 
feasting all day" with Mr. Charles Turner of Kirkleatham, 
than whom none of the Yorkshire gentlemen entertained more 
lavishly, and none was married to a more beautiful wife. 
These visits mark the last time that Sterne and his friends 
were to race chariots along the beach by Saltburn "with one 
wheel in the sea and the other in the sand". On taking final 
leave of Skelton, Hall-Stevenson accompanied him home to 
Shandy Hall for a few days' rest preliminary to several short 
trips together. They passed a whole day at Bishopthorpe 
with the Archbishop of York, who honoured Sterne with a 
subscription to the Sentimental Journey on imperial paper; 
then they put off to Harrogate, where they drank the waters 
through a week at the height of the season, and thence they 
returned to York for the summer races. At York was 
delivered to Sterne, two hours after his arrival, as if timed to 
it, the first news from Mrs. Draper since she sailed from 
Deal. It was the journal of her voyage, in two long letters, 
as far as Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands and to some 
point across the line, where a Dutch ship, returning from 
India, took aboard the Earl of Chatham's mail. How 
Sterne's heart was upset when he broke the "dear packets" 
alone in his lodgings, may be left to his journal to relate : 

"I cannot give vent to all the emotions I felt even before 
I open'd them — for I knew thy hand — and my seal — which 
was only in thy possession 'tis from my Eliza, said I. 

* This letter forms a part of the Giihs MSS. 



426 LAUEENCE STEENE 

1 instantly shut the door of my Bed-chamber, and 



ordered myself to be denied and spent the whole evening, 

and till dinner the next day, in reading over and over again 
the most interesting account — and the most endearing one 

that ever tried the tenderness of man. 1 read and wept — 

and wept and read till I was blind then grew sick, and 

went to bed — and in an hour call'd again for the Candle. 
* * * my Eliza! thou writest to me with an Angel's pen 
— and thou wouldst win me by thy Letters, had I never seen 
thy face or known thy heart. ' ' 

All summer long, letters came in from friends to join 
them at Scarborough, but he waited until the full season, 
when he went over as the guest of Dr. Jemmet Brown, Bishop 
of Cork and Ross. Writing to Mr. and Mrs. James of the 
visit, Sterne said: "I was ten days at Scarborough in Sep- 
tember, and hospitably entertained by one of the best of our 
Bishops; who, as he kept house there, press 'd me to be with 

him and his household consisted of a gentleman, and two 

ladies — which, with the good Bishop and myself, made so 

good a party that we kept much to ourselves. 1 made in 

this time a connection of great friendship with my mitred 
host, who would gladly have taken me with him back to 
Ireland." The two ladies were Lady Anne Dawson and 
Sterne's old friend, Mrs. Vesey, both of whom were at 
Scarborough for the restoration of their nerves. They 
amused themselves by standing on the cliff until they were 
giddy, as they watched "the poor Bishop floundering and 
sprawling" in the sea; and in the evening were tea-parties, 
and excursions in their chaises.* Before the company 
broke up, the good bishop made Sterne "great offers" if he 
would settle in Ireland, and requested the honour of marry- 
ing him to Mrs. Draper as soon as all obstacles should be 
removed. With Dr. Brown's offer came another from a 
friend in the south, who would have Sterne exchange Sutton 
and Stillington for a parish in Surrey, only thirty miles 
from London and valued at three hundred and fifty pounds 
a year. Under the second arrangement, Sterne was to retain, 

* Letters of Mrs. 'Elizabeth Carter, edited by Montagu Pennington, 
III, 320 (London, 1809). 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 427 

as explained to Mrs. Draper, Coxwold and his prebend; but 
in his present weakened state of body and mind, he was 
unable to go through the details of the transfer. "I could 
get up fast", he wrote for Mrs. Draper, "the hill of prefer- 
ment, if I chose it — but without thee I feel Lifeless and 

if a Mitre was offer 'd me, I would not have it, till I could 
have thee too, to make it sit easy upon my brow." 

Mrs. Draper was thus never long absent from Sterne's 
imagination. Wherever he went, he always took with him 
his journal, writing in it nearly every day, and Eliza's por- 
trait, which was passed round the table at Skelton and Kirk- 
leatham, while all the guests, even the ladies, ' ' who hate grace 
in another", drank to the health of the original. Visits 
to his best friends were only distractions which drew him 
from the quiet of Coxwold, with which, as it was now haunted 
by Mrs. Draper's spirit, he was never so much in love. 
"0 'tis a delicious retreat", he exclaimed on returning from 
Skelton, "both from its beauty, and air of Solitude; and so 
sweetly does every thing about it invite your mind to rest 
from its Labours and be at peace with itself and the world 

That 'tis the only place, Eliza, I could live in at this 

juncture. 1 hope one day you will like it as much as your 

Bramin." Until that day should arrive, the apartments set 
aside for Mrs. Draper were to be occupied by himself. Her 
likes and dislikes, so far as he remembered them from casual 
conversation, were consulted in purchasing a chaise for driv- 
ing about the parish with her by his side in fancy. Her 
favourite walk, like his own, would likely be to a secluded 
"convent", as he called it, doubtless the romantic ruins of 
Byland Abbey under a spur of the Hambleton hills two 
miles away. Anticipating the morning when Mrs. Draper 
should visit the ruins with him, he plucked up one day the 
briars which grew by the edge of the pathway, that they 
might not scratch or incommode her when she should go 
swinging upon his arm. And before the summer was over, 
he built for his future companion a pavillion in a retired 
corner of his house-garden, where he was wont to stroll or 
sit in reverie during the heat of the day or in the evening 



428 LAURENCE STERNE 

twilight, waiting for a day's sleep whence he might awake 
and say: "Behold the Woman Thou hast given me for Wife." 

Ill 

Sterne was destined, however, to behold on waking from 
his visions, not Mrs. Draper bending over him with her large 
languishing eyes, but the plain, every-day woman who had 
been given him for wife twenty-five years before. In short, 
Mrs. Sterne was hastening home post-chaise from France. 
The collapse of all his fancies Sterne took mainly in good 
part, commenting gaily, as he anticipated it, upon "the last 
Trial of conjugal Misery", which he wished to have begin 
"this moment that it might run its period the faster". 

Mrs. Sterne, it will be recalled, was intending to stay in 
southern France for a year or two longer; but soon after 
hearing that her husband had fallen under the spell of a 
Mrs. Draper, she changed her mind. The news was brought 
to her early in February by an English traveller who crossed 
her path at Avignon on the road to Italy. Though she told 
the busybody "that she wished not to be informed and 
begged him to drop the subject", the rumour made her so 
uneasy that Lydia was forthwith directed to enquire about it 
of her father. Sterne's reply that he had indeed a friend- 
ship for Mrs. Draper, "but not to infatuation", could hardly 
be accepted, in the light of subsequent letters describing her 
as an "incomparable woman", "a drooping lily", etc.; for 
Mrs. Sterne had heard these very phrases before her mar- 
riage, and knew what they meant. Her suspicions were fur- 
ther aroused by the infrequency of her husband's letters and 
by delays in remittances from Panchaud and Foley, all of 
which in her opinion argued neglect. When called to account 
for his conduct, Sterne informed his wife through Lydia 
that she was getting ninepence out of his every shilling, and 
that the post, not himself, was responsible for the irregular 
arrival — and perhaps loss — of his letters. Amid these mis- 
understandings, Sterne was glad to receive a hint that they 
would all be cleared up by the return of his wife and 
daughter to Coxwold for the summer. "For God's sake 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 429 

persuade her", Sterne wrote to Lydia of his wife near the 
first of April, "to come and fix in England, for life is too 

short to waste in separation and whilst she lives in one 

country, and I in another, many people suppose it proceeds 

from choice besides, I want thee near me, thou child and 

darling of my heart." 

But Sterne's attitude towards the return of his wife and 
daughter was reversed by subsequent letters from them out- 
lining their plans. They were coming home, it was made 
clear to him, merely for a visit at his expense without the" 
slightest intention of resuming their former life at York and 
Coxwold. After a few months with him, they would go 
back to France, where they were to leave behind them all 
their clothes, plate, and linen ; and in order that they might 
never again be incommoded by the want of money, the 
demand was made upon Sterne that he should purchase for 
them an annuity of £200 in the French funds. This was 
certainly a proposition at which a country parson receiving 
a few hundred pounds a year from his books might well 
balk. All his friends commiserated with him, advising him 
to sell "my life dear and fight valiantly in defence both of 
my property and life". Hall-Stevenson, outdoing the rest, 
made Yorick's conjugal tribulations the theme of "an affect- 
ing little poem" to circulate among the Demoniacs. Sterne, 
likewise falling into the jest of the situation, poured forth 
pages of self-pity over madame's approaching reconciliation 
with her husband. To Mrs. James he wrote: "I went five 
hundred miles the last Spring, out of my way, to pay my 

wife a week's visit and she is at the expence of coming 

post a thousand miles to return it. What a happy pair! 

however, en passant, she takes back sixteen hundred 

pounds into France with her — and will do me the honour 
likewise to strip me of every thing I have." And similar, 
but more amusing in its details, is the record of the journal 
for Mrs. Draper: "I shall be pillaged in a hundred small 

Item's by them — which I have a Spirit above saying, no 

to; as Provisions of all sorts of Linnens — for house use — 
Body use — printed Linnens for Gowns — Mazareens of Teas 
— Plate, (all I have but six Silver Spoons) In short I 



430 LAUEENCE STEENE 

shall be pluck 'd bare — all but of your Portrait and Snuff 
Box and your other dear Presents — and the neat furniture 

of my thatch 'd Palace and upon these I set up Stock 

again, Eliza." 

Notwithstanding his humorous murmurings, Sterne ac- 
quiesced after a month or two in his wife's plan for a set- 
tlement, and awaited her arrival for the purpose more 
complacently perhaps than is implied by a literal reading 
of his journal. He was quite willing to be fleeced or to have 
his back flayed, provided he could escape with his life. All 
else Mrs. Sterne might gather up and decamp with, whither 
she list, on condition that she trouble him no more. His 
apparent indifference, which no one will take too seriously, 
did not prevent him from sending to his wife and daughter 
his customary directions for a safe and comfortable journey. 
Lydia was told to throw all her rouge pots into the Sorgue 
before setting out from Avignon, for no rouge should ever 
invade Shandy Hall; but she might bring along her lively 
French dog, though he was rather " devilish " the last time 
Sterne saw him, as a companion for the lonely house-cat 
purring by Yorick's side, if she would promise to guard 
against "a combustion" when the two animals met. On 
reaching Paris, the travellers were to go at once to Pan- 
chaud's, who would offer them every civility, fill their purses, 
and advise them about the proposed annuity. While in the 
city they were to make all necessary purchases of clothing; 
and as soon as they arrived in London, Mrs. Sterne was to 
take out a life insurance policy in favour of Lydia. Finally, 
they must inform him, several posts ahead, of their coming, 
that he might be in York to meet them with his chaise and 
long-tailed horses, neither of which had they ever seen. 
Though the chaise had already been given to Mrs. Draper in 
the fancies which he was weaving about her, he could yet say 
to his wife and daughter, "The moment you both have put 
your feet in it, call it hereafter yours". 

Mrs. Sterne and Lydia arrived in York, where Sterne 
awaited them, on the last day of September; and the next 
morning they enjoyed their first ride in the new chaise over 
to Coxwold. Sterne was a little fearful that he might not 



THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA 431 

find grace with madame, but there occurred no untoward 
incident, much less a scene. The greeting between Sterne 
and his daughter, now a young woman, was most cordial. 
"My Lydia", Sterne wrote immediately to his Parisian 

banker, "seems transported with the sight of me. Nature, 

dear Panchaud, breathes in all her composition; and except 
a little vivacity—which is a fault in the world we live in — 
I am fully content with her mother's care of her." He 
likewise intended it as a compliment when a few days later 
he added in the postscript of a letter to Mrs. James: "My 

girl has returned an elegant accomplished little slut my 

wife — but I hate to praise my wife 'tis as much as decency 

will allow to praise my daughter." The united family 
apparently passed a pleasant month together, during which 
the details of Mrs. Sterne's plan were discussed and worked 
out to a slightly different issue. A prospective purchaser 
was found for a part or the whole of their real estate, which 
was to be turned into an annuity for Lydia ; and Mrs. Sterne 
was promised a liberal allowance. These financial arrange- 
ments and other stipulations, as finally agreed upon when 
husband and wife decided to go apart after a marriage of 
twenty-five years, are all summed up in a postscript to the 
journal under the date of the first of November: 

"All, my dearest Eliza, has turn'd out more favourable 

than my hopes Mrs. S. and my dear Girl have been 

two Months [a slip for one month] with me and they have 
this day left me to go to spend the Winter at York, after hav- 
ing settled every thing to their heart's content Mrs. Sterne 

retires into France, whence she purposes not to stir, till her 

death, and never, has she vow'd, will [she] give me 

another sorrowful or discontented hour. 1 have conquerd 

her, as I would every one else, by humanity and Generosity 

— and she leaves me, more than half in Love with me. 

She goes into the South of France, her health being insup- 
portable in England and her age, as she now confesses, 

ten Years more than I thought, being on the edge of sixty 

so God bless — and make the remainder of her Life 

happy — in order to which I am to remit her three hundred 
guineas a year — and give my dear Girl two thousand pounds, 



432 LAURENCE STERNE 

which, with all Joy, I agree to, — but tis to be sunk into an 
annuity in the French Loans. " 

Behindhand a month with the Sentimental Journey, 
Sterne did not accompany his wife and daughter to York, 
but had them driven in by his man. None of the three 
wished the approaching separation to be regarded as quite 
final. The version of it which was to go to the world, Sterne 
gave out in a letter to Arthur Lee, descriptive of the affecting 
scene between himself and Lydia as the chaise stood by the 
door of Shandy Hall : 

"Mrs. Sterne's health is insupportable in England. 

She must return to France, and justice and humanity forbid 
me to oppose it. 1 will allow her enough to live com- 
fortably, until she can rejoin me. My heart bleeds, Lee, 

when I think of parting with my child- 'twill be like the 

separation of soul and body — and equal to nothing but what 
passes at that tremendous moment ; and like it in one respect, 

for she will be in one kingdom, whilst I am in another. 

You will laugh at my weakness — but I cannot help it — for 

she is a dear, disinterested girl As a proof of it — when 

she left Coxwould, and I bade her adieu, I pulled out my 
purse and offered her ten guineas for her private pleasures 

her answer was pretty, and affected me too much: 'No, 

my dear papa, our expences of coming from France may 
have straiten 'd you — I would rather put an hundred guineas 

into your pocket than take ten out of it.' 1 burst into 

tears. ' ' 



CHAPTER XX 

THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
JUNE 1767— FEBRUAKY 1768 

Apart from its strict biographical details, the journal to 
Eliza has several interesting aspects. The chief of them no 
one can regard as literary, though the manuscript offers an 
opportunity here and there for studying Sterne's method 
of composition from the first hastily written sentence down 
to the smoothing out of phrase and clause with new words in 
a new order. The manuscript also casts a curious side-light 
on the psychology of Sterne's plagiarisms. In his Sermons 
and in Shandy, he stole, it is charged, from others; in the 
journal he stole from himself. A good passage or a good 
story, whether originally his own or somebody else's, he could 
not keep from reworking when occasion called for it, any 
more than could Charles Lamb. A letter, for example, to 
Arthur Lee describing the golden age at Coxwold, Avas ad- 
justed a month later to the journal ; and in reverse order, the 
Shandean account of Sterne's illness, first recorded in the 
journal, was retold in a letter to the Earl of Shelburne. 
The dear Eliza of the journal was frequently transformed 
into dear Lydia for letters to his daughter, each being "the 
sweet light burthen" which he hoped to bear in his arms up 
the "hill of preferment"; and, stranger still, long passages 
were taken from the stale letters to Miss Lumley, written as 
far back as 1740, and transferred to Mrs. Draper, as appli- 
cable, with few changes, to the new situation. It was hardly 
more than writing "Molly" for "Fanny", or "our faithful 

friend Mrs. James" for "the good Miss S ", and the old 

"sentimental repasts" with Miss Lumley in Little Alice Lane 
— house-maid, confidante, and all — could be thereby served 
up anew for Mrs. Draper in Bond Street. 

But the real significance of the journal to Eliza lies not 

28 433 



434 LAURENCE STERNE 

in its literary artifice nor in its parallelisms, which would be 
disreputable were the process not so amusing; it lies in the 
fact that it completely reveals the pathological state of the 
emotions — long suspected but never quite known to a cer- 
taint} r — whence sprang the Sentimental Journey, during the 
composition of which Sterne was fast dying of consumption, 
barely keeping himself afoot much of the time with ass's 
milk; for when he ventured upon a more substantial diet, 
there stared him in the face the dreadful corrosive mercury. 
Each work is the counterpart of the other. In the journal, 
we have the crude expression of the maudlin sentiment which 
often accompanies a wasting disease ; in the Sentimental 
Journey, we have sentiment refined to an art so exquisite as 
to place the author among the first masters of English prose. 
In real life, Sterne bursts into a flood of tears while convers- 
ing with Mrs. James over their separation from Eliza — he 
almost faints, and with difficulty reaches the door; in fancy, 
he weeps his handkerchief wet over the distracted maid of 
Moulins who has lost her lover. In the journal, he plucks 
up the briars along the path which Mrs. Draper will some- 
time tread by his side; in the Sentimental Journey, it is a 
nettle or two growing upon the grave of a poor Franciscan 
whose feelings he has wounded. In the one he communes 
with the house-cat as she lies purring by the fire ; in the 
other with a travel-worn German peasant sitting on the stone 
bench of the inn by Nampont, and weeping at the death of 
the donkey which has been his faithful companion all the 
way to the shrine of St. James of Compostella and thus far 
on the long journey home to Franconia. Eliza, her minia- 
ture always opposite to him on his desk when he took pen in 
hand, sat for the slightly varied portraits of the brown lady, 
the grisette, and the fille de chamore of the Sentimental 
Journey, all of whom awaken precisely the same sexual 
emotions, never quite gross but sometimes suggestive of gross- 
ness. It is not the strong, healthy sexuality of Smollett or 
Fielding, but rather the sexuality of waste and enervation, 
such as inspired the harmless passion for Mrs. Draper, a 
feeble stir of the blood which Sterne felt as he held the hand 
of a beautiful woman, stooped to fasten her shoe-buckle, or 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUENEY 435 

slept in a room near her at a wayside inn. It is all quite 
innocent provided one takes it so. 

A book of travels, we remember, had been in Sterne's 
mind ever since the winter at Toulouse, and in the succeed- 
ing instalment of Tristram Shandy he tried his hand, we also 
remember, at one based upon his journey from Calais to 
Paris and south to Avignon and across the plains of Lan- 
guedoc. His ideal at that time was comedy running into 
farce and satire. To this end he played with current guide 
books, whose videnda were eventually set aside in favour of 
ludicrous incidents by the way, accompanied with the claim, 
gravely expressed, that he loved better than all else dusty 
thoroughfares along which there was nothing to see, and so 
nothing to relate, beyond an occasional beggar, pilgrim, or 
fig-vender on the road to Beaucaire. The idea was well 
enough worked out in a narrative memorable for Old Honesty 
and the vintage dance ; but with the plan as a whole, details 
neglected, there was nothing very novel or striking. It was 
in fact only a whimsical variant, however well carried 
through, of the comic adventures which everybody had read 
in Cervantes, Scarron, or Fielding. Clearly not satisfied with 
the outcome, Sterne made another tour abroad to gain, besides 
his health, fresh incidents for a second journey which should 
include Italy also. 

In the meantime Dr. Smollett, likewise sick and in fear 
of death, had gone over nearly the same route and brought 
out two volumes of Travels through France and Italy. 
Keen as was the novelist's intelligence, his irritable temper, 
accentuated by overstrained nerves, warped everything he 
saw. Crossing Smollett's path somewhere, most likely, we 
have said, at Montpellier, Sterne introduced him into the 
Sentimental Journey as a type of the "splenetic traveller" 
under the appropriate name of "Smelfungus", and as a fit 
companion to "Mundungus", or "the proud traveller" — a 
thin disguise for Dr. Samuel Sharp, another sick surgeon 
who was publishing his impressions of the Continent.* "The 
learned Smelfungus", says Sterne, "travelled from Boulogne 
to Paris — from Paris to Rome — and so on — but he set out 
* Letters from Italy (London, 1766). 



436 LAUEENCE STEENE 

with the spleen and jaundice, and every object he pass'd by 

was discoloured or distorted He wrote an account of 

them, but 'twas nothing but the account of his miserable 
feelings." The inn at a seaport town near Genoa where the 
novelist took up his night's lodging was kept, says Smollett's 
record, by a butcher who "had very much the looks of an 
assassin. His wife was a great masculine virago, who had 
all the air of having frequented the slaughter-house. * * * 
We had a very bad supper, miserably dressed, passed a very 
disagreeable night, and paid a very extravagant bill in the 
morning. I was very glad to get out of the house with my 
throat uncut". The women of Italy Smollett found "the 
most haughty, insolent, capricious, and revengeful females 
on the face of the earth". The Tuscan speech, so often 
praised for its sweetness, was to his ear harsh and dis- 
agreeable. "It sounds", he said, "as if the speaker had lost 
his palate. I really imagined the first man I heard speak in 
Pisa had met with that misfortune in the course of his 
amours." While in Florence, he was attracted to the Uffizi 
gallery by the fame of the Venus de Medici; but he at once 
discovered, to quote again famous phrases, that there is "no 
beauty in the features" of the marvellous statue, and that 
"the attitude is awkward and out of character." When he 
reached Rome, he was "much disappointed at the sight of 
the Pantheon which looks", said the sick traveller, "like a 
huge cockpit, open at the top. * * * Within side it has much 
the air of a mausoleum. It was this appearance which, in all 
probability, suggested the thought to Boniface IV, to trans- 
port hither eight-and-twenty cart-loads of old rotten bones, 
dug from different burying-places, and then dedicate it as a 
church to the blessed Virgin and all the holy martyrs." 

The reaction of Sterne's mind upon Smollett's gave him 
the point of view for which he had been long striving. Like 
Smollett's, his travels were to deal with observation, personal 
and direct, rather than with incident, comic or exciting; but 
"my observations", he said, "shall be altogether of a differ- 
ent cast than any of my forerunners", just as my tempera- 
ment, he might have added, differs from theirs. In 
distinction from the jaundiced traveller, to whose eye all 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 437 

things, they say, look yellow, Sterne proclaimed himself the 
sentimental traveller, or one who, disregarding all the rest, 
seeks and finds, wherever chance takes him, only those objects 
and incidents which excite and keep going a series of 
pleasurable emotions. "Was I in a desert", he said, "I 
would find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections 

If I could not do better, I would fasten them upon some 

sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect 

myself to 1 would court their shade, and greet them 

kindly for their protection 1 would cut my name upon 

them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the 
desert: if their leaves wither 'd, I would teach myself to 
mourn, and when they rejoiced, I would rejoice along with 
them." His design in writing the Sentimental Journey, he 
told Mrs. James, "was to teach us to love the world and our 

fellow creatures better than we do so it runs most upon 

those gentler passions and affections, which aid so much to 
it". There was also a more personal aim hinted at here and 
there in Sterne's letters. Feeling the approach of death, he 
wished to leave the world with a different impression than 
had been made upon it by Tristram Shandy. Above his 
humour, which had led him into many indecorums of speech, 
he prized his sensibility, which had kept his heart right, as 
everybody might now see for himself. That side of his talent 
which the public had admired in the story of Le Fever was 
now to find expression on a larger scale. Incidentally the 
book was to be so chaste that it might lie upon any lady's 
table ; or heaven have mercy upon her imagination. 

Subdued to this mood by passion and disease, Sterne 
began the Sentimental Journey within a week of his arrival 
at Coxwold towards the end of May. Ten days were passed 
in sorting and arranging the miscellaneous notes and sketches 
of his travels, which had long lain by him, before he was 
ready to write the introductory chapter immortalising the 
name of Eliza. At first, progress was slow because of extreme 
weakness and the intrusion of Mrs. Draper's image in and 
out of season. "Cannot write my Travels", was the pretty 
complaint on the third of June, "or give one half hour's 
close attention to them, upon thy Account, my dearest friend 



438 LAURENCE STERNE 

Yet write I must, and what to do with you, whilst I 



write 1 declare I know not 1 want to have you ever 

before my Imagination and cannot keep you out of my 

heart or head. * * * Now I must shut you out sometimes 

or meet you Eliza! with an empty purse upon the 

Beach. ' ' At length health mended ; the journal to Eliza, 
which kept his heart bleeding, was closed up; and all his 
energies were bent upon the book that he must have ready 
for his subscribers by the next winter. "It is a subject", 
Sterne informed Mrs. James when well into it, "which works 
well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some 
time past." During the period of composition, the manu- 
script was submitted to the Demoniacs and other "Geniuses 
of the North", who declared it, Sterne assured Becket in 
September, "an Original work and likely to take in all Kinds 
of Readers"; but "the proof of the pudding", the author 
added, "is in the eating".* 

The even course of Sterne's pleasure at his task was 
broken by a week's illness in August "with a spitting of 
blood", and by the visit of his wife and daughter, to whose 
comfort and entertainment was devoted the entire month of 
October. To make up for lost time, Sterne spurred on his 
Pegasus violently through November, "determined not to 
draw bit", until his book should be completed. Utterly 
exhausted by this final spurt, he wrote to the Earl of Shel- 
burne at the end of the month : ' ' Yorick * * * has worn out 

both his spirits and body with the Sentimental Journey ■ 

'tis true that an author must feel himself, or his reader will 

not but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my 

feelings." Thereupon followed the inevitable collapse — a 
succession of hemorrhages with fever, which confined Sterne 
to his room for three weeks. As soon as the fever left him, 
his old buoyancy of spirit brought him to his feet again, and 
he set off for London in company with Hall-Stevenson, who 
was going up to see through the press a volume of facetious 
verse-tales called Makarony Fables. The journey was mere 
madness on Sterne's part, for nothing was left of him but a 
shadow. "I am weak", the Jameses were warned in advance 
* Notes and Queries, second series, IV, 126. 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUENEY 439 

while he was resting at York, U I am weak, my dear friends, 

both in body and mind so God bless you you will see 

me enter like a ghost so I tell you before-hand not to be 

frightened. ' ' 

But besides having a book to publish, Sterne still believed 
that he might once more recruit mind and body, as had so 
often happened in past years, by a change of scene and faces. 
For months his friends had been calling him to London, all 
eager to hear him read from his sentimental travels amid 
the old intimacies. Lord Shelburne, he hoped, would be 
pleased with his book, and then his labour would not have 
been in vain. The earl must, it was urged, make the ac- 
quaintance of the Jameses before the winter was over. "You 

would esteem the husband, and honour the wife she is 

the reverse of most of her sex they have various pursuits 

— she but one — that of pleasing her husband." Sir George 
Macartney wrote to Yorick from St. Petersburg, where the 
diplomat was negotiating a commercial treaty with Russia; 
and after his return Sterne congratulated him upon the suc- 
cess of his mission, adding "I shall have the honour of 
presenting to you a couple of as clean brats as ever chaste 
brain conceiv'd. " Macartney, Craufurd, and Sterne were to 
renew their convivial friendship. A certain "Sir W", per- 
haps Sir William Stanhope, brother to Chesterfield and one 
of the Delaval set, came north during September for a week 
at Scarborough, stopping at York, where he and Sterne met 
over their "barley water" at Bluitt's Inn in Lendal. This 
gentleman was to be convinced by the Sentimental Journey 
that sensibility has no kinship with sensuality. "I take 
heav'n to witness", Sterne replied to him on being rallied 
for the freedoms of Tristram Shandy, i ' I take heav 'n to wit- 
ness, after all this badinage my heart is innocent and the 

sporting of my pen is equal, just equal, to what I did in my 
boyish days, when I got astride of a stick, and gallop 'd 
away. * * * Praised be God for my sensibility! Though it 
has often made me wretched, yet I would not exchange it for 
all the pleasures the grossest sensualist ever felt." Among 
friends without rank were not forgotten honest Sancho, who 
must make his usual morning calls in Bond Street; and 



440 LAUEENCE STERNE 

Arthur Lee, to whom Sterne was continuing to give expert 
counsel in matters of the heart. 

Mrs. James was deeply chagrined when 'she heard a 
rumour that Yorick had paid a flying visit to London in the 
autumn without calling upon her. Sterne set the idle story 
at rest, explaining how it all may have come about, and 
remonstrating with his friend that she should even fancy 
him capable of so great incivility: "Good God! to think I 
could be in town, and not go the first step I made to Gerrard 

Street! My mind and body must be at sad variance with 

each other, should it ever fall out that it is not both the first 
and last place also where I shall betake myself, were it only 
to say, 'God bless you.' * * * I * * * never more felt the 
want of a house I esteem so much, as I do now when I can 
hear tidings of it so seldom and have nothing to recom- 
pense my desires of seeing its kind possessors, but the hopes 
before me of doing it by Christmas." Mrs. Ferguson, the 
witty widow who welcomed Sterne to London eight years 
before with his first "extraordinary book", was waiting for 
January when she might obtain a peep at the Sentimental 
Journey. Beyond the widow's name, nothing is known of this 
sincere friend to the whole Sterne family. And there was 
another unknown woman, a certain Hannah, who, falling 
across Sterne's way last season, wished to be still kept in his 
memory. Hannah was a sprightly girl, whose chit-chat 
amused him and to whom he replied in kind, claiming, on 
the receipt of her first letter during the summer, that he 
could not exactly place her among the many Queens of Sheba 
who had honoured him with visits. "It could not be", he 
replied, "the lady in Bond-street [Mrs. Draper], or Gros- 

venor-street, or Square, or Pall Mall. We shall 

make it out, Hannah, when we meet. * * * How do you do? 

Which parts of Tristram do you like best? God bless 

you." With the help of another letter from Hannah, he 
was able to recall the ' ' good dear girl ' ' and her sister Fanny, 
whom the Sentimental Journey, Yorick predicted, "shall 
make * * * cry as much as ever it made me laugh, or I'll 
give up the business of sentimental writing". 

Thus anticipating the pleasure of laying a new book at 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUENEY 441 

the feet of his friends, Sterne drove up to his old lodgings 
in Bond Street on the first or second of January, 1768. It 
was the worst sort of weather, cold, raw, and damp. In- 
fluenza had set in and was carrying off poor people so fast 
that the newspapers feared not enough labourers would be 
left to do the work of the next summer. Everybody was 
warned against exposure to the inclemency of the season. 
" Their Majesties", said the newspapers, under date of Mon- 
day the fourth of January, "did not attend service yesterday 
at the Chapel Royal on account of the badness of the weather, 
but had private service performed in their apartments at the 
Queen's palace." On that Sunday, Sterne, becoming care- 
ful of his health for the first time in his life, watched the 
rain from his window all day, forgoing the pleasure of a call 
on the Jameses and of dining with them and their friends 
in the evening. But mindful of the engagement, he sent 
over to Gerrard Street the compliments of the new year to 
all the household gathered about the firesides — "Miss 
Ascough the wise, Miss Pigot the witty, your daughter the 
pretty, and so on" — with an enclosure for Lord Ossory, 
should he be present. On Sterne's table lay scattered cards, 
notes, and invitations out, enough to carry him through a 
fortnight of dinners. Among them was an urgent request 
from Mrs. James for aid in obtaining a ticket to Mrs. 
Cornelys's forthcoming assembly. Never before had there 
been so great a demand for tickets to this social function, 
which was to assume added splendour this year. Mrs. James, 
at whose table sat Lord Ossory, had pleaded with all her 
friends, and had everywhere failed. Would Mr. Sterne 
use his influence? Sterne wrote back that he was not a 
subscriber to Soho this year, but that he might be depended 
upon to do his best for her. So he began despatching notes 
round among his friends; and as they all brought in un- 
favourable responses, he set out himself the next morning to 
see what he could do by his presence. The episode concluded 
pleasantly, if unsuccessfully, with the following letter to the 
Jameses, which may be dated Monday, January 4, 1768: 

"My dear Friends, 1 have never been a moment at 

rest since I wrote yesterday about this Soho ticket 1 have 



442 LAURENCE STERNE 

been at a Secretary of State to get one — have been npon one 
knee to my friend Sir George Macartney, Mr. Lascelles — 

and Mr. Fitzmaurice* — without mentioning five more 

I believe I could as soon get you a place at court, for every- 
body is going but I will go out and try a new circle — 

and if you do not hear from me by a quarter after three, you 
may conclude I have been unfortunate in my supplications. 

1 send you this state of the affair, lest my silence should 

make you think I had neglected what I promised but no 

— Mrs. James knows me better, and would never suppose it 
would be out of the head of one who is with so much truth 
her faithful friend. L. Sterne." 

Though Sterne felt unequal to a Soho assembly, he was 
drawn, so far as health would permit, rather reluctantly into 
the old life. If his friends could not have him always at 
their tables, they attended him in Bond Street, where was 
held every morning a sort of levee. "I am now tyed down", 
he complained to the Jameses in February, "neck and heels 
(twice over) by engagements every day this week, or most 
joyfully would have trod the old pleasing road from Bond 
to Gerrard street. * * * I am quite well, but exhausted with 

a room full of company every morning till dinner How 

do I lament I cannot eat my morsel (which is always sweet) 
with such kind friends ! " As usual, his guests sent in little 
presents for remembrance, or enrolled themselves among his 
subscribers, in return for the pleasure of hearing the charm- 
ing Yorick read from his sentimental travels in advance of 
publication. This year he was especially honoured with a 

series of prints from "L. S n Esq", as the heading to a 

letter has the blundering disguise, but really, I think, from 
George Selwyn, the grim wit and politician, who put his 
name down for the Sentimental Journey. On receiving the 
gift, accompanied by a note proffering friendship, Sterne 
replied in his most courteous manner, beginning: "Your 
commendations are very flattering. I know no one whose 
judgment I think more highly of, but your partiality for me 
is the only instance in which I can call it in question. 

* Probably Edwin Lascelles, M.P. for Yorkshire; and Thomas 
Fitzmaurice, M.P. for Calne. 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUENEY 443 

Thanks, my good sir, for the prints — I am much your debtor 

for them if I recover from my ill state of health and live 

to revisit Coxwould this summer, I will decorate my study 
with them, along with six beautiful pictures I have already 
of the sculptures on poor Ovid's tomb." 

There came to Sterne also a much prized gift from over- 
seas in the form of a curiously carved walking-stick, double 
handled and twisted into all sorts of shapes, which a Dr. 
Eustace of North Carolina sent over in company with a letter 
giving its history and uses. The colonial physician, after 
introducing himself as "a great admirer of Tristram 
Shandy" and "one of his most zealous defenders against the 
repeated assaults of prejudice and misapprehension", went 
on to explain whimsically why the walking-stick should 
belong to Sterne. "The only reason", he said, "that gave 
rise to this address to you, is my accidentally having met 
with a piece of true Shandean statuary, I mean according to 
vulgar opinion, for to such judges both appear equally desti- 
tute of regularity or design. It was made by a very 

ingenious gentleman of this province, and presented to the 
late Governor Dobbs, after his death Mrs. D. gave it me: 
its singularity made many desirous of procuring it, but I 
had resolved, at first, not to part with it, till, upon reflection, 
I thought it would be a very proper and probably not an 
unacceptable, compliment to my favourite author, and in his 
hands might prove as ample a field for meditation as a 
button-hole, or a broom-stick." 

It was too late for the walking stick of Governor Dobbs 
ever to go into Tristram Shandy; but Sterne sent back by 
the next ship a meditation, taking, as the physician wished, 
the singular gift as a symbol of his book for an attack upon 
all who had failed to appreciate its humour. Never quite 
sound in his judgment since the old days of his quarrel with 
his uncle Jaques, Sterne still imagined that he had been 
persecuted through his literary career by a conspiracy 
formed against him. Under date of February 9, 1768, 
Sterne wrote to Dr. Eustace : 

"Sir, I this moment received your obliging letter and 
Shandean piece of sculpture along with it, of both which 



444 LAUEENCE STEENE 

testimonies of your regard I have the justest sense, and 
return yon, dear Sir, my best thanks and acknowledgement. 
Your walking stick is in no sense more Shandaic than in that 
of its having more handles than one ; the parallel breaks only 
in this, that in using the stick, every one will take the handle 
which suits his convenience. In Tristram Shandy the handle 
is taken which suits the passions, their ignorance, or their 
sensibility. There is so little true feeling in the herd of the 
world, that I wish I could have got an act of parliament, 
when the books first appeared, that none but wise men should 
look into them. It is too much to write books, and find 
heads to understand them ; the world, however, seems to come 
into a better temper about them, the people of genius here, 
being to a man on its side ; and the reception it has met with 
in France, Italy, and Germany, has engaged one part of the 
world to give it a second reading. The other, in order to 
be on the strongest side, has at length agreed to speak well 
of it too. A few hypocrites and tartuffes, whose approbation 
could do it nothing but dishonour, remain unconverted. 

"I am very proud, Sir, to have had a man like you on my 
side from the beginning; but it is not in the power of every 
one to taste humour, however he may wish it; it is the gift 
of God: and, besides, a true feeler always brings half the 
entertainment along with him; his own ideas are only called 
forth by what he reads, and the vibrations within him 

intirely correspond with those excited. 'Tis like reading 

himself — and not the book. 

"In a week's time I shall be delivered of two volumes of 
the Sentimental Travels of Mr. Yorick through France and 
Italy ; but, alas ! the ship sails three days too soon, and I 
have but to lament it deprives me of the pleasure of pre- 
senting them to you. 

"Believe me, dear Sir, with great thanks for the honour 
you have done me, with true esteem, your obliged humble 
servant, Laurence Sterne. " 

Having uttered his last word on Tristram Shandy, Sterne 
was looking forward, as we see, to the Sentimental Journey, 
which was to win over the poor remainder of his enemies. 
The work had been passing through the press rather slowly, 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUKNEY 445 

owing to the author's numerous corrections in the text, 
apparently down to the moment of publication. To judge 
from the extant part of the manuscript,* now in the British 
Museum, and comprising the first volume as published, Sterne 
brought up with him from Coxwold a fair copy in his own 
hand for the printer, leaving blank always the versos and 
sometimes a recto, with a view to easy changes and addi- 
tions. There is a notion, warranted only by Yorick's jesting 
remarks, that Sterne was a careless writer who put down and 
printed whatever came into his head without premeditation. 
How false this notion is I have shown in discussing Tristram 
Shandy, whose several instalments were playfully organised, 
we concluded, on Locke's theory of associated ideas, while 
all details were studied with scrupulous concern for humor- 
ous or pathetic effects. Much that was there half guessed 
at may be seen in the manuscript of the Sentimental Journey 
— a neat, underlying copy, which after six weeks of inter- 
mittent labour was covered all over with deletions, and 
interlinear substitutions reaching out into margins and blank 
pages. Sterne knew, artist as he was, that a point just missed 
may sometimes be retrieved merely by a new word or a new 
phrase. 

It is perhaps saying too much to imply that Sterne had 
any occasion in the last stages of his book to retrieve himself 
from real failure. Already complete was that wonderful 
series of portraits, ebbing and flowing with the author's 
emotions, in the order as we now have them, from the poor 
Franciscan, the Flemish lady, and La Fleur, on to the dwarf 
and the beautiful grisette from whom Yorick purchased the 
gloves. It is rather that these portraits sometimes needed 
here and there just those touches which make for perfection. 
No scene in the Sentimental Journey struck the fancy of 
Europe more than the exchange of snuff-boxes between 
Yorick and Father Lorenzo after their sweet contention. 
It led in Germany, few probably know, to the formation of 
little coteries for the study of Sterne, the members of which 
presented one another with horn snuff-boxes, and promised 
to cultivate Yorick's gentleness, content with fortune, and 
* Egerton MSS., 1610. 



446 LAURENCE STERNE 

pity and pardon for all human errors.* Before turning in 
his manuscript to the printer, Sterne hesitated between a 
bald relation of the incident and the details as the world 
now knows them. In its cancelled form the passage read: 
"The monk rubbed his horn box upon his sleeve and pre- 
sented it to me with one hand, as he took mine from me in 
the other ; and having kissed it, with a stream of good nature 
in his eyes he put it into his bosome — and took his leave." 
When printed, the passage ran : ' ' The monk rubb 'd his horn 
box upon the sleeve of his tunick; and as soon as it had 
acquired a little air of brightness by the friction — he made 
a low bow, and said, 'twas too late to say whether it was the 
weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us 

in this contest But be it as it would he begg'd we 

might exchange boxes In saying this, he presented his to 

me with one hand, as he took mine from me in the other; 
and having kissed it — with a stream of good nature in his 
eyes he put it into his bosom — and took his leave." How 
much the scene gains by the elaboration every one must feel. 
The mendicant who had come to ask an alms, gave instead 
all that he had to Yorick, but not until he had heightened 
the value of his gift by "a little air of brightness". In view 
of what Sterne did here, we wonder whether we should not 
regard as a happy afterthought the bit of rust which caught 
the eye of the Marquis of E # * * * , as he drew his sword 
from its scabbard before the assembled states at Eennes, and, 
dropping a tear upon the place, remarked "I shall find some 
other way to get it off". 

The account of Monsieur Dessein's vamped-up chaise, for 
whose sorrowful adventures through the passes of Savoy 
and over Mont Cenis Yorick sought to awaken pity, was 
rather tame as Sterne originally had it ; for he wrote at first : 
"Much indeed was not to be said for it — but something 
might — and when a few little words will set the poor chaise 
of an innocent traveller agoing, I hate the man who can be 
a churl of them." Subsequently a clause was crossed out 

*For the queer story of these Lorenzo orders, see H. W. Thayer, 
Laurence Sterne in Germany, 84-89 (New York, 1905) : and J. Longo, 
Laurence Sterne and Johann Georg Jacoli, 39-44 (Wien und Leipzig, 
1898) . 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 447 

and another written in its place, so as to make the whole 
read: "Much indeed was not to be said for it — but some- 
thing might — and when a few words will rescue misery out 
of her distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them. ' ' 
On this passage, Thackeray once put the rhetorical question: 
"Does anybody believe that this is a real Sentiment? that 
this luxury of generosity, this gallant rescue of Misery — out 
of an old cab, is genuine feeling." Whether Sterne or 
Thackeray was right, it is worth while to observe that the 
sentiment was fully premeditated. The sketch of the beau- 
tiful Fleming whom Yorick on a sudden turn of his head 
met full in the face on his way to Monsieur Dessein's 
magazine of chaises, was likewise carefully reworked. 
' ' Heaven forbid ! ' ' the strange lady exclaimed in the first 
version, "laying her hand upon her eyes". But as this is 
not the natural gesture in warding off a threatened blow, 
Sterne subsituted "raising her hand up to her forehead". A 
moment later Yorick took the stranger's hand and led her 
towards the remise door in silence ; whereof Sterne remarked 
that it was one of those situations "which can happen to a 
man but once in his life". In after-thought he struck out 
the parenthesis, preferring to leave undetermined the rarity 
of the occurrence in real life. 

The lament of the Franconian peasant over his dead ass 
by the roadside caused Sterne much trouble; for several of 
the sentences were begun, abandoned, and tried two or three 
times over before the sentiment could be rendered precisely 
as he wished it. Another perplexity was who should compose 
the merry kitchen at Amiens on the evening when La Fleur 
pulled out his fife and led off in the dance. At the first 
trial Sterne was certain that the "fille de chambre, the maitre 
d'hotel, the cook, the scullion, etc." would be there; but it 
took two more humorous trials to unroll etc. into "all the 
household, dogs, and cats, besides an old monkey". There 
was some doubt, too, as to the sobriquet most fitting for 
Smollett, the author's arch-enemy. Sterne had him at first 
Smeldungus, but left him Smelfungus. In like manner was 
partially deodorised the anecdote told of Madame de "Ram- 
bouliet, by merely substituting a French phrase for the plain, 



448 LAURENCE STERNE 

blunt English, originally writ large. Again, while counting 
the pulse of the grisette, Yorick lost his reckoning, it will be 
remembered, at the fortieth pulsation, owing to the unex- 
pected entrance of the husband, who passed through the shop 
from the back parlour to the street. As a late addition came 
the grisette 's remark — '"Twas nobody but her husband", — 
which put Yorick at his ease in running up a fresh score on 
the pretty wrist still extended towards him. On bidding 
adieu, Yorick gave the hand of the beautiful grisette, as it 
was first written, "something betwixt a shake and a squeeze". 
Had the vulgarity been permitted to stand, the scene would 
have been spoiled, so whimsically delicate is it in every other 
detail. 

These are merely examples of Sterne's alterations, so 
numerous that no adequate notion could be given of them 
without photographing large parts of the manuscript. True, 
one turns many a clean folio, but substitutions such as have 
been described are the rule; words and phrases are also 
frequently transposed, and sentences are recast, curtailed, or 
added to, — all for exactness, clearness, and rhythm. Every 
change, however, relates to details, never to the general out- 
line of a portrait or to the emotional transition from one to 
another, any difficulties with which, if they were encoun- 
tered, are not revealed by a manuscript wherein we see the 
author only refining, sometimes to an amusing degree. For 
example, Yorick was not sure whether the packet which bore 
him across the Channel should reach port at one, two, or 
three o'clock in the afternoon. He first wrote two, then one, 
and finally drawing his pen through each, settled upon three 
o'clock as affording sufficient dramatic time for the Calais 
episode before the approach of evening. Neither was he 
sure whether he gave six or eight sous to "the sons and 
daughters of poverty" who surrounded him as he was leav- 
ing the inn at Montreuil; nor whether, on his return to 
Calais, he walked a league or two leagues to pluck "a nettle 
or two" growing over the grave of the late Father Lorenzo. 

More important than attentions to time, place, and 
number, is the keen sense that Sterne everywhere displayed 
for the differences of meaning between synonyms, though 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 449 

the right word was often slow in making its appearance. 
Of the following list, he finally chose the second of each pair, 
crossing out the first and writing the second above it or on 
the margin: insolence and triumph, literata and precieuse, 
quest and pursuit, withdrew and disengaged, hurt and mor- 
tified, motives and movements, consolation and comfort, 
donnoit and presentoit, un joli garcon and a clever young 
fellow, and so on in a descent through scores of others to 
ocean and sea, entered and came into, where rhythm or the 
desire to escape repetition won the day. Throughout the 
process Sterne managed his French easily. At times it was 
not quite correct ; accents* were often forgotten ; and occa- 
sionally were dropped off final vowels and consonants of 
words like Londre for Londres and desobligeant for desobli- 
geante; but it was all clear enough to the eye. Beyond 
these and similar slips, the French translator of the Senti- 
mental Journey found it necessary to make very few cor- 
rections in the many French phrases scattered through the 
book. For Sterne's fille de chambre was substituted the 
more usual femme de chambre, though both were in use; 
and voila un persiflage of necessity became voila du per- 
siflage; while the billet doux which Yorick sent to Madame 
de L * * * was left intact except for corporal, which should 
have been caporal. 

Here in the Sentimental Journey occurs Sterne's beauti- 
ful rendering of the French proverb : A brebis tondue Dieu 
mesure le vent. "God tempers the wind", said the unfor- 
tunate maid of Moulins, "to the shorn lamb." Precisely 
how Sterne attained to the perfect phrasing along with the 
perfect rhythm, no one can ever know, for the manuscript 
does not extend thus far ; but if inference be justifiable from 
analogies supported by the manuscript, moral epigrams did 
not come to him in full expression all at once and without 
effort. To cite an instance, Yorick was so disturbed while 
at the Opera Comique by the boorish conduct of a German 
towards a dwarf standing in front of him in the parterre, 
that he was ready to leap out of his box and run to the aid 
of the poor fellow. Over Yorick 's emotions, Sterne first 
remarked: "An injury sharpen 'd by an insult is insuf- 

29 



450 LAURENCE STERNE 

f erable ' ' ; but not satisfied with the commonplace, he ran his 
pen through the last part of the sentence, and then reworked 
the whole to "An injury sharpen 'd by an insult, be it to 
whom it will, makes every man of sentiment a party." And 
so it likely was with the famous proverb, which seems easy 
enough to frame now that the feat has been accomplished. 
It was only throwing, one may say, the French sentence 
into the English order and translating mesure by tempers, 
and there you have Sterne. Yes: but George Herbert tried 
his hand at the French proverb in a slightly different form 
before pres had dropped out between brebis and tondue, and 
gave us the awkward "To a close shorne sheep God gives 
wind by measure."* Sterne tried his hand and gave us 
"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb", thereby puzzling 
many a clergyman who has taken the proverb for a text and 
afterwards searched in vain for it through the wisdom of 
Solomon. 

Not since the first instalment of Tristram Shandy had 
Sterne taken so great pains with a book, the publication of 
which Becket was forced to delay until Wednesday or Thurs- 
day, the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of February, 1768, t 
a full month beyond the usual time for Sterne to make his 
annual literary entrance into society. The work, bearing the 
title A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, 
appeared in two styles — in two small octavo volumes with 
pages measuring about six inches by three and three quar- 
ters, and in two larger octavo volumes on imperial paper 
with wide-margined pages measuring about seven inches by 
four. In the first style, the price of the set, pages sewed but 
unbound, was five shillings; in the second style, the price 
was apparently half a guinea. Except for one episode 
clearly out of place and for a few incidental references, the 
travels contained nothing about Italy; indeed they were 
extended beyond Paris only by working over in a more senti- 
mental mood the story of Maria and the scene of the vintage 
dance from Tristram Shandy, with the addition of an anec- 
dote retold after John Craufurd of Errol. But as an an- 

* Outlandish Proverbs, No. 861 (London, 1640). 

t Registered at Stationers' Hall, Feb. 27, 1768. 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUENEY 451 

nouncement that the public might expect an Italian tour in 
continuation, Sterne had a loose page printed and slipped 
into the copies for his subscribers. The loose page, rarely 
to be seen nowadays, read as follows: 

' ' Advertisement. 
'T^HE Author begs leave to ac- 
knowledge to his Subscribers, 
that they have a further claim upon 
him for Two Volumes more than these 
delivered to them now, and which 
nothing but ill health could have 
prevented him, from having ready 
along with these. 

"The Work will be compleated 
and delivered to the Subscribers early 
the next Winter."* 

There were two hundred and eighty-one subscribers, who 
took altogether, some entering their names for more than one 
copy, three hundred and thirty-four sets — one hundred and 
ninety-nine on ordinary paper, and one hundred and thirty- 
five on imperial paper. The result may seem disappointing 
when compared with the immense array that ushered in the 
Sermons of Mr. Yorick only two years before. Of all Sterne 's 
publications, his sermons, it must be admitted, were the most 
immediately profitable; but their subsequent sale could not 
be counted upon; nor is a subscribers' list a sure index of a 
first sale, inasmuch as many a person who would hesitate to 
patronise a book which might prove another Tristram 
Shandy, would nevertheless purchase and read it. The new 
list of subscribers, though falling short of expectations, was 
a most notable advertisement, wherein were again marshalled 
troops of friends among the nobility, gentry, and distin- 
guished commoners, including nearly everybody prominently 
connected with his Majesty's government, all the way down 

* It has been asserted more than once (Notes and Queries, fifth 
series, IX, 223) that this advertisement was issued with only the large 
paper copies. This is an error, for the advertisement as given here is 
taken from a small paper copy. 



452 LAURENCE STERNE 

from the Duke of Grafton, the First Lord of the Treasury. 
And as an assurance that the book contained nothing to bring 
a blush to the most innocent cheek, one might read in the roll 
of ecclesiastical titles, names like York and Peterborough. 
All who could afford imperial paper had the honour of a 
star after their names. Sir George Macartney was thus 
starred for five sets, and "the young rich Mr. Crew" was 
starred for twenty sets, the largest single subscription except 
Panchaud's, who engaged the same number of small copies 
for Paris. 

No subscribers' list was necessary to ensure the success 
of the Sentimental Journey, the first edition of which was 
exhausted within a month.* All who wrote of the book in 
newspapers, magazines, and letters were now ready to take 
off their hats to Mr. Sterne's genius. All, I should say, 
except one. Smelfungus, as the type of the splenetic traveller 
from "a well-known original", of course could not be passed 
by without a return thrust from Smollett's man on the 
Critical Review, \ who lamented, on observing chapters which 
bore no number, that Yorick was again imposing upon the 
public "whim for sentiment and caprice for humour". As 
the reviewer waxed hot, poor Yorick was charged with "mak- 
ing the sufferings of others the objects of his mirth" and of 
rising "superior to every regard for taste, truth, observa- 
tion, and reflection"; while La Fleur, "the least unmean- 
ing" of all the sketches, the angry reviewer finally asserted 
without any attempt at proof, was "pieced out with shreds 
* # * barbarously cut out and unskilfully put together from 
other novels". On the other hand, Walpole, who could never 
get through three volumes of the "tiresome Tristram 
Shandy", thought the new book "very pleasing, though too 
much dilated", and recommended it for its "great good 
nature and strokes of delicacy "4 One by one the portraits, 
beginning with the monk and ending with the last scene at 
the Piedmont inn, were taken up for comment by the Monthly 
Review in a notice running through March and April. Quite 

* The second edition appeared on Tuesday, March 29. — London 
Chronicle, March 26-29, 1768. 
tMay, 1768. 
t Letters, edited by Toynbee, VII, 175. 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUKNEY 453 

naturally the reviewer was disposed to sport with his "good 
cousin Yorick ' ', in memory of old days when each had slashed 
the other's jerkin ; but it was all kindly banter. Why should 
"one of our first-rate pens", it was asked, write "a black 
pair of silk breeches" instead of the more accurate "a pair 
of black silk breeches"? or why should he descend to the 
vulgarism of lay for lie, as when he says "Maria should lay 
in my bosom", as if Maria were "the name of a favourite 
pullet"? But these blemishes were all "pitiful minutiae", 
it was concluded, of no account in a series of travels abound- 
ing in "masterly" portraits, "affecting", "touching", "deli- 
cate", and so on through the list of epithets of praise. 

Tristram Shandy had long ago made Sterne's name 
familiar through the greater part of literary Europe. Many 
read the book in France and in Germany; but few even 
among its friends at home, Sterne used to say, really under- 
stood its drift. Certainly none of those who were translating 
it had any adequate conception of its meaning. The Senti- 
mental Journey, clear of any disorder in its art, could be 
more easily read. Everybody could feel its sentiment and 
pathos, though its lurking humour might escape them, 
just as it escaped Thackeray a century later. True, the 
Sentimental Journey does not cut so deeply into life as does 
Tristram Shandy, the work by which one must finally gauge 
Sterne's genius; but for literary charm time has rightly 
given it the preference. The narrative — if it be narrative — 
moves through a series of dramatic portraits, which, like the 
emotions underlying them, rise bright out of one another, 
and, after glowing for a moment, fade away with consum- 
mate art. Literature has nothing like these little pictures of 
French life drawn with a hair brush. They have been aptly 
compared to the choicest pastels of Latour and Watteau, 
always delicate and yet always brilliant in their colouring. 
Unlike Tristram Shandy, there was nothing local about the 
Sentimental Journey, nothing provincial, nothing even racial. 
It at once assumed its place as a cosmopolitan classic by the 
side of Robinson Crusoe. 

Translations appeared in French and German within a 
year, and thereafter in Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Russian. 



454 LAURENCE STERNE 

Bode, the German translator, when pnzzled how to render 
the word sentimental, appealed for aid to his friend Lessing, 
who coined the adjective empfindsam after the analogy of 
muhsam, thus giving, through Sterne, a new word to the 
German language. It was in this translation, followed by 
Tristram Shandy in 1774, that Goethe and Heine mainly 
knew Sterne, of whom the former once said: "Yorick Sterne 
is the best type of wit that ever exerted an influence in 
literature. Whoever reads him feels himself lifted above 
the petty cares of the world. His humour is inimitable, and 
it is not every kind of humour that leaves the soul calm and 
serene."* Frenais, the French translator, likewise troubled 
for an equivalent of sentimental, decided to take the word 
over into French, in the hope that it would prove useful for 
expressing a new idea. This mutilated version of the 
original, missing as often as hitting the point of Sterne's 
anecdotes, brought Yorick *s name and strange personality 
back to the salons which had been captivated by his conver- 
sation.* The book, said Madame Suard, amused and pleased 
many, while some few had for it the most profound contempt. 
The vivacious Mademoiselle de Sommery, for instance, was 
surprised that any one should find interest in a dead ass, a 
lackey, or a mendicant who asks an alms. And she shook 
with laughter at Yorick *s pleasure in holding the gloved 
hand of a beautiful woman or in counting her pulse beats 
with the tips of his fingers. To this and similar ridicule 
Madame Suard replied finely in a letter to a mutual friend. 
"The chapters descriptive of these incidents", she said there, 
"certainly have little promise in them; but Sterne's merit, 
it seems to me, lies in his having attached an interest to 
details which in themselves have none whatsoever; in his 
having caught a thousand faint impressions, a thousand 
fleeting emotions which pass through the heart or the 
imagination of a sensitive man, and in having rendered them 
all in piquant phrase and image. He enlarges, so to speak, 
the human heart by portraying his own sensations, * * * 
and thereby adds to the stores of our enjoyment. * * * If 
* Thayer, Laurence Sterne in Germany, 105. 



THE SENTIMENTAL JOUENEY 455 

you do not love Sterne, beware of telling me so, for I fear I 
should then love you less."* 

To a later period belongs the impassioned tribute of Heine, 
who was as sensitive as Sterne to "the great black eyes" and 
"pale elegiac faces" which he saw in Italy. "Laurence 
Sterne", declared Heine in his enthusiasm, "is the born equal 
of William Shakespeare; and he, too, was nurtured by the 
Muses on Parnassus. But after the manner of women they 
quickly spoiled him with their caresses. He was the darling 
of the pale, tragic goddess. Once in an access of fierce tender- 
ness, she kissed his young heart with such power, passion, and 
madness, that his heart began to bleed and suddenly under- 
stood all the sorrows of this world, and was filled with infinite 
compassion. Poor young poet heart ! But the younger daugh- 
ter of Mnemosyne, the rosy goddess of humour, quickly ran 
up to him, and took the suffering boy in her arms, and sought 
to cheer him with laughter and song; she gave him for play- 
things the comic mask and the jester's bells, and kissed his 
lips soothingly, kissing upon them all her levity and mirth, 
all her wit and mockery, "f 

* Lettre d'une Femme sur le Voyage sentimental de Sterne, in J. B. 
A. Suard's Melanges de Litterature, III, 111-122 (Paris, 1803). Frenais 
states his troubles over the word sentimental in his Avertissement to 
the Voyage Sentimental (Amsterdam et Paris, 1769). Likewise Bode 
in his Vorbericht to YoricTcs Empfindsame Beise (Hamburg und Bremen, 
1768). 

t Die Bomantische Schule. Bk. Ill, ch. III. 



CHAPTER XXI 

ILLNESS AND DEATH 
MARCH 1768 

But Sterne never lived to enjoy to the full his final 
triumph. The last time we see him afoot is on a Sunday, 
late in February. He was to breakfast with Beauelerk, the 
friend of Dr. Johnson, and pass an hour afterwards with 
Lord Ossory. In the evening he was to dine along with 
Selwyn with their friends in Gerrard Street. Mrs. James, 
he had discovered, possessed a talent for drawing. "I pre- 
sented her last year", he wrote to Selwyn ten days before, 
1 'with colours, and an apparatus for painting, and gave her 

several lessons before I left town. 1 wish her to follow 

this art, to be a compleat mistress of it and it is singular 

enough, but not more singular than true, that she does not 
know how to make a cow or a sheep, tho' she draws figures 
and landscapes perfectly well.' , All this was a pretty intro- 
duction to a request that Selwyn bring with him an Italian 
print or two from his collection of "cattle on colour 'd 
paper" for Mrs. James to copy. The two men planned to 
go over to Gerrard Street half an hour before dinner to see 
a picture of Mrs. James just "executed by West, most 
admirably". "He has caught", said Sterne in concluding 

his letter to Selwyn, "the character of our friend such 

goodness is painted in- that face, that when one looks at it v 
let the soul be ever so much un-harmonized, it is impossible 

it should remain so. 1 will send you a set of my books 

they will take with the generality the women will 

read this book in the parlour, and Tristram in the bed- 
chamber. Good night, dear sir 1 am going to take my 

whey, and then to bed." 

The Sunday evening at Mrs. James's was the last of the 
thousand dinners which had attended Yorick in his fame. 

456 



ILLNESS AND DEATH 457 

The same week he came down with the winter's influenza, 
which he had thus far escaped, notwithstanding his weakened 
condition. During his illness, friendly visitors again called 
at his lodgings, but he was unable to maintain his old buoy- 
ancy of spirit, as may be seen from his last letter to his 
daughter near the beginning of March. Mrs. Sterne, who 
was still ailing, feared that she was going to die and leave 
Lydia in the hands of a father who would send her out 
to India as a companion to Mrs. Draper. On hearing from 
Lydia of his wife's delusion, Sterne wrote back that he never 
had such a design, that in case his daughter should lose her 
mother, Mrs. James would become her protector. The dis- 
respectful reference to Mrs. Draper in the letter now to be 
quoted, was doubtless edited in by Lydia according to her 
custom as we know it from extant originals. Sterne's last 
pathetic letter to his daughter, in the form she printed it, ran 
as follows: 

"My dearest Lydia, My Sentimental Journey, you 

say, is admired in York by everyone and 'tis not vanity 

in me to tell you that it is no less admired here but what 

is the gratification of my feelings on this occasion? the 

want of health bows me down, and vanity harbours not in 

thy father's breast this vile influenza be not alarm 'd, 

I think I shall get the better of it and shall be with you 

both the first of May, and if I escape, 'twill not be for a long 
period, my child — unless a quiet retreat and peace of mind 

can restore me. The subject of thy letter has astonish 'd 

me. She could but know little of my feelings, to tell thee, 

that under the supposition I should survive thy mother, I 
should bequeath thee as a legacy to Mrs. Draper. No, my 
Lydia! 'tis a lady, whose virtues I wish thee to imitate, that 

I shall entrust my girl to 1 mean that friend whom I 

have so often talk'd and wrote about from her you will 

learn to be an affectionate wife, a tender mother, and a sin- 
cere friend and you cannot be intimate with her, without 

her pouring some part of the milk of human kindness into 
your breast, which will serve to check the heat of your own 

temper, which you partake in a small degree of. Nor will 

that amiable woman put my Lydia under the painful neces- 



458 LAUEENCE STEBNE 

sity to fly to India for protection, whilst it is in her power 

to grant her a more powerful one in England. But I 

think, my Lydia, that thy mother will survive me do not 

deject her spirits with thy apprehensions on my account. 

I have sent you a necklace, buckles, and the same to your 

mother. My girl cannot form a wish that is in the power of 

her father, that he will not gratify her in — and I cannot 

in justice be less kind to thy mother. 1 am never alone 

The kindness of my friends is ever the same 1 wish 

tho' I had thee to nurse me — but I am deny'd that. 

Write to me twice a week, at least. God bless thee, my 

child, and believe me ever, ever thy affectionate father, 
L. S." 

Influenza prepared the way for pleurisy, which set in 
during the second week of March ; and despite all that could 
be done for him, the patient grew worse from day to day. 
On Tuesday the fifteenth, feeling the approach of death, he 
took his farewell of the world in a noble and tender letter to 
Mrs. James, asking her to look to the welfare of Lydia and 
pleading for pardon for the many follies which had pained 
his best friends: 

"Your poor friend is scarce able to write he has been 

at death's door this week with a pleurisy 1 was bled three 

times on Thursday, and blister 'd on Friday The physi- 
cian says I am better God knows, for I feel myself sadly 

wrong, and shall, if I recover, be a long while of gaining 

strength. Before I have gone thro' half this letter, I must 

stop to rest my weak hand above a dozen times. Mr. James 

was so good to call upon me yesterday. I felt emotions not 
to be described at the sight of him, and he overjoy 'd me by 

talking a great deal of you. Do, dear Mrs. James, entreat 

him to come to-morrow, or next day, for perhaps I have not 

many days, or hours, to live 1 want to ask a favour of 

him, if I find myself worse — that I shall beg of you, if in 

this wrestling I come off conqueror — my spirits are fled 

'tis a bad omen — do not weep my dear Lady your tears 

are too precious to shed for me — bottle them up, and may 

the cork never be drawn. Dearest, kindest, gentlest, and 

best of women ! may health, peace, and happiness prove your 



ILLKESS AND DEATH 459 

handmaids. If I die, cherish the remembrance of me, and 

forget the follies which you so often condemn 'd — which my 

heart, not my head, betray 'd me into. Should my child, my 

Lydia want a mother, may I hope you will (if she is left 

parentless) take her to your bosom? You are the only 

woman on earth I can depend upon for such a benevolent 

action. 1 wrote to her a fortnight ago, and told her what 

I trust she will find in you. — — Mr. James will be a father 

to her — he will protect her from every insult, for he wears 

a sword which he has served his country with, and which he 

would know how to draw out of the scabbard in defence of 

innocence Commend me to him — as I now commend you 

to that Being who takes under his care the good and kind 

part of the world. Adieu all grateful thanks to you 

and Mr. James. Your poor affectionate friend, L. Sterne. " 

Sterne lingered on in the full possession of his faculties 

for three days more. Death came at four o'clock in the 

afternoon of Friday, March 18, 1768.* 

Around the closing scenes in his Bond Street lodgings has 

grown up a legend, starting from a fact or two, to show that 

a life of pleasure, as in the case of the Rake's Progress, must 

end in lonely bitterness. "The celebrated writer Sterne'', 

said Malone in repeating what he had heard in his youth, 

"after being the idol of this town, died in a mean lodging 

without a single friend who felt interest in his fate except 

Becket, his bookseller." A little while before his death, 

according to other parts of the story, Sterne complained like 

Falstaff of cold in his feet; whereupon one attendant chafed 

them while another plucked out his gold sleeve-buttons. The 

next day his landlady, to be sure of her rent, sold his body, 

Allan Cunningham heard, to dissectors.! It is quite easy to 

* St. James's Chronicle, March 17-19. 

t For stories concerning Sterne 's death, see Prior, Life of Malone, 
373-74 (London, 1860) ; Leslie and Taylor, Life and Times of Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, I, 293 (London, 1865) ; Cunningham, biographical 
sketch of Eeynolds in Lives of Eminent Painters edited by W. Sharpe 
(London, 1886) ; John Ferriar, Illustrations of Sterne, II, 42 (London 
1812) ; Notes and Queries, fifth series, VIII, 249. Cunningham has an 
amusing story. "The death of Sterne/ > he relates, "is said to have 
been hastened by the sarcastic raillery of a lady whom he encountered 
at the painter >s [Eeynolds] table. He offended her by the grossness of 
his conversation, and, being in a declining state of health, suffered * * * 
so severely from her wit — that he went home and died." 



460 LAURENCE STERNE 

dispose of most of the legend. The "mean lodging" was a 
suite of apartments in the most fashionable quarter of the 
city, where Sterne was accustomed to receive every morning 
men of the first rank. As his last illness was coming upon 
him, he wrote to Lydia in the letter already quoted: "I am 

never alone the kindness of my friends is ever the same." 

Sir Joshua Reynolds had an appointment with him on the 
twenty-second of February and again on the first of March.* 
This kindly anxiety, it is safe to infer, continued till the end. 
Commodore James, we know, called on Monday the four- 
teenth, and most likely on the succeeding Thursday. If 
visitors dropped away during the week, it was only because 
Sterne was too ill to see them. On the first signs of pleurisy, 
a physician, doubtless his "friend" of last year, was sum- 
moned to bleed and blister in accordance with the usual 
practice, and a nurse was placed in watch over the patient. 
That Molly the house-maid, a cherished servant, who packed 
and unpacked Sterne's luggage and served his meals through 
two seasons, robbed him of sleeve-buttons or other trinkets 
while death was creeping upon him, may be believed by 
readers who know nothing of the kindly attachment that 
ever existed between Sterne and those who served him. 
"The poor girl", Sterne wrote in his journal the year before, 
"is bewitch 'd with us." His landlady appears to have been 
brusque of speech, but there is no evidence that she was a 
ghoul. If Sterne was in arrears for his rent, we may be 
certain that Becket discharged the obligation out of the 
proceeds of the Sentimental Journey, which was fast ad- 
vancing to a second edition. The sick man must have known 
when he came up to London that the chances were against 
his return to Coxwold. In his death was nearly fulfilled the 
wish which he had expressed in Tristram Shandy, that he 
might not die in his own house, but rather in "some decent 
inn" away from the concern of friends, where "the few cold 
offices" he should want might be "purchased with a few 
guineas and paid me with an undisturbed and punctual 
attention". 

Without the aid of fictitious incident to point a moral, 
* Reynolds, Pocket-Booh for 1768 (MS. at Royal Academy of Arts). 



ILLNESS AND DEATH 461 

the contrast between the full life Sterne had lived and his 
last moments is sufficiently striking to the imagination. 
Had he been in health that Friday afternoon, he would have 
been a guest at the table of John Craufurd of Errol. Re- 
turning from Paris in January, this old friend had estab- 
lished himself for the season, with a French cook and a 
retinue of other French servants, near Sterne in Clifford 
Street, in the house of Sir James Gray, who was going as 
ambassador to Spain. On that Friday afternoon his friends 
were gathering for a four o'clock dinner. There were 
present the Duke of Roxburgh, just appointed a lord of his 
Majesty's bedchamber, the Earl of March, afterwards 
Duke of Queensberry, the Earl of Upper-Ossory, the Duke 
of Grafton, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Hume, and Mr. James. The 
conversation turned to the illness of Mr. Sterne, "a very 
great favourite", says the relater, "of the gentlemen's"; 
and on hearing how serious his illness was, Craufurd im- 
mediately sent out John Macdonald, a cadet of a ruined High- 
land family, then in his service, to enquire how Mr. Sterne 
was to-day. "I went to Mr. Sterne's lodgings", is the 
cadet's record from memory; "the mistress opened the door; 
I enquired how he did? She told me to go up to the nurse. 
I went into the room, and he was just a dying. I waited ten 
minutes; but in five he said, 'Now it is come\ He put up 
his hand, as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute. The 
gentlemen were all very sorry, and lamented him very 
much. ' '* 

The news of Sterne's death passed quickly on from his 
friends to the public. Lady Mary Coke, as noted in her 
journal, heard of it that evening while playing loo at Caroline 
Howe's. Of the party were Horace • Walpole, the Earl of 
Ossory, and Lord Eglinton. Lord Ossory, on coming in 
from Craufurd 's dinner, announced the death of "the 
famous Dr. Sterne". "He seemed", remarked Lady Mary, 
"to lament him very much. Lord Eglinton said (but not 
in a ludicrous manner) that he had taken his ' Sentimental 
Journey'."f Newspapers contained the usual death notice, 
*John Macdonald, Travels, 146-47 (London, 1790). 

t Letters and Journals of Lady Mary CoTce, II, 215-16 (Edinburgh, 
1889). 



462 LAURENCE STERNE 

some of them adding Hamlet's lament over the skull of 
"poor Yorick, * * * a fellow of infinite jest". Within a 
week or two, verses began to circulate in newspapers and 
magazines on Sterne's humour and pathos. Very sprightly 
was a poem in which a poetaster expressed doubt as to where 
Yorick might now be sojourning, whether in the Elysian 
Fields or in the darker realms of Pluto. Taking notice of 
this and other illiberal pens which were meanly endeavour- 
ing to injure the reputation of Mr. Sterne, the London 
Magazine for March felt sure that "if the accusing spirit 
flies up to heaven's chancery with his indiscretions, it will 
blush to give them in", or that "the recording angel in writ- 
ing them down will drop a tear upon each and wash it away 
forever". The news of Sterne's death, travelling abroad 
through the next month, reached Lessing at Hamburg. 
Though Lessing never met Sterne, he had been reading Tris- 
tram Shandy since 1763, and recommending it for enlight- 
enment. On being told by Bode, the translator, that Yorick 
was dead, the great critic and dramatist made a famous 
remark, afterwards variously repeated to other friends. 
1 ' I would have given ten years of my own life, ' ' said Lessing, 
"if I had been able to lengthen Sterne's by one year".* Like 
many other Germans, Lessing wished Sterne to live on, that 
he might write more lives and opinions, more sermons and 
more journeys, or no matter what. 

Were the moralists of aftertimes to be trusted, Sterne's 
funeral was "as friendless as his death-bed", though the very 
little really known concerning it points to nothing out of the 
usual course. Sterne was buried on Tuesday, the twenty- 
second of March,! from his lodgings in Bond Street, then 
within the parish of St. George's Church, Hanover Square. 
Whether few or many mourners came for a last look at 
Yorick in his death there is, no record. All one can say 
about it is that the service was conducted, according to John 
Croft, by the chaplain of the late Prince of Wales, who took 
charge of Sterne's personal effects and burned, as was then 

* Bode, Vorbericht to his translation of the Sentimental Journey; 
and Thayer, Laurence Sterne in Germany, 40 (New York, 1905). 

t Parish Registry, St. George % Hanover Square. 



ILLNESS AND DEA^H 463 

customary, his "loose papers".* The interment was, we 
may well believe, as was said twelve years afterwards, "most 
private";! for the burial-ground belonging to the fashionable 
church in Hanover Square lay far out Oxford Street on the 
Bayswater Road, over against the broad expanse of Hyde 
Park. It was a new ground which had been enclosed and 
consecrated only four years before, with a small mortuary 
chapel at the entrance. Among the few "gentlemen" who, 
tradition says, attended Sterne's body through the chapel, 
named the Ascension, on to his grave by the west wall, were 
certainly Becket and Commodore James. The record closes 
with the entry which the sexton made in his book, that six- 
teen shillings and sixpence — a rather large sum — was paid 
for prayers at the chapel and for the candle kept burning 
previous to interment. 

The appropriate resting place for Sterne's body would 
have been the beautiful church at Coxwold by Shandy Hall. 
But none of his Yorkshire friends, who might have borne 
the trouble and expense of removal, were in London at the 
time of his death. Hall-Stevenson had returned to Skelton, 
and Lord Fauconberg remained at his country-seat through 
the winter. The group of London gentlemen who took charge 
of his funeral knew little or nothing of his associations in the 
north. Since Sterne died in the parish of St. George's, the 
burial-ground attached to that church must have appeared 
to them the most natural place for his interment. And yet 
they should have considered the danger attending burial in 
the suburbs at a time when dissecting-tables were furnished, 
without any scruple on the part of anatomists, from remote 
grave-yards. They should have known, if they read the 
newspapers, that for some time before Sterne's death the 
resurrection men had been at work on the Bayswater Road 
and in the neighbouring parish of Marylebone. In the hope 
of putting an end to the sacrilege, the wardens of St. 
George's placed over their ground a watch with a large 
mastiff dog; but in spite of this precaution, a corpse was 

* Whitefoord Papers, 230. 

t Memoirs prefixed to the collected edition of Sterne 's works (Lon- 
don, 1780). 



464 LAURENCE STERNE 

stolen on a Sunday in the preceding November, while the 
watch was asleep ; and the very dog was carried off: with the 
burden,* It is charitable to suppose that this warning in 
the newspapers had escaped the notice of those friends who 
conveyed Sterne to his last legal settlement. 

However that may be, they were soon to hear, with "great 
concern and astonishment", that Sterne had gone to the 
dissecting-table. As the story was told to Hall-Stevenson 
when he came up to London the next winter, "the body of 
Mr. Sterne, who was buried near Mary [le] bone, was taken 
up some time after his interment, and is supposed to have 
been carried to Oxford, and anatomised by an eminent 
surgeon of that city".f Besides the mistake in the place of 
burial, Hall-Stevenson seems also to have been misinformed 
as to the exact disposition of the body. For Oxford the 
more carefully elaborated story has Cambridge. To give all 
the gruesome details of the narrative then current, Sterne's 
body was stolen from his grave by resurrectionists on the 
night of Wednesday or Thursday following the interment, 
and carried the next day in a case to Cambridge, where it 
was sold to "the anatomical professor" of the university, 
since identified as Dr. Charles Collignon, "an ingenious, 
honest man ' ', much skilled in his art. To mitigate the horror 
of the crime, it is said that none involved in the robbery 
knew that the body was Sterne's. The discovery came about 
by mere accident. The professor of anatomy invited two 
friends to view the dissection of a nameless corpse which had 
just arrived from London. The work was nearly over when 
one of them out of curiosity uncovered the face of the dead 
man and recognised the features of Sterne, whom he had 
known and associated with not long ago. The poor visitor 
fainted at the sight, and Professor Collignon, on learning 
what a famous man lay under his scalpel, took care to retain 
the skeleton, which "the Rev. Thomas Greene" — presumably 
the Dean of Salisbury — claimed to have seen at Cambridge 
a few years after. Since the opening of the nineteenth cen- 

* St. James's Chronicle, Nov. 24-26, 1767. 

t Hall-Stevenson, Preface to Yoriclc's Sentimental Journey Continued 
(second edition, London, 1769). 



ILLNESS AND DEATH 465 

tury, various attempts have been made to identify Sterne's 
skull in the collection at Cambridge, but they have all been 
fruitless. The tradition has nevertheless persisted among 
Dr. Collignon's successors down to Dr. Alexander Macalister, 
who now holds the professorship, that Sterne's skull once 
reposed in the Anatomical Museum of the university. 

The ghastly tale in the form recently told anew by Pro- 
fessor Macalister may be accepted as essentially true.* Not 
only is it probable when we consider the place and circum- 
stances of Sterne's burial; but it also rests upon good 
authority, partly upon the statement of Hall-Stevenson, who 
was Sterne's most intimate friend, and partly upon that of 
Malone, who received the account of Sterne's dismal fate 
directly from one of the gentlemen who was present at the 
dissection. Of less weight, though worthy of regard, is an 
old manuscript note at the end of a copy of the first edition 
of the Sentimental Journey, wherein the writer says that the 
story was confirmed by Dr. Collignon. Certainly it was very 
generally believed in after years that Sterne's sojourn was 
brief on the Bayswater Eoad. In consequence of this and 
other desecrations of the dead, St. George's burial-ground 
fell into great ill-repute. Overgrown with nettles and weeds, 
it was for a long time among the most neglected grave-yards 
in all London ; shunned by everybody out of instinctive feel- 
ings of horror, it was a spot where no one, if he could help it, 
ever permitted his friends to be buried. And so it became a 
place where the poor might be huddled into their graves. 
Since those days all has changed: the metropolis has spread 
her protecting wings far beyond Hyde Park; and the old 
abandoned cemetery by the great Marble Arch, long since 
closed against the dead, appears as a quiet spot in the midst 
of a throbbing life.f But as a fitting symbol of the Gothic 
fears which it formerly inspired, lie some distance from where 
Sterne was buried the bones of Ann Radcliffe, the once 
popular romancer of crime and death. 

As evidence of final and complete neglect, it has been 

* Macalister, History of the Study of Anatomy in Cambridge (Cam- 
bridge, 1891). See also Willis's Current Notes, April, 1854, for a 
summary of the evidence. 

t Cecil Moore, Brief History of St. George's Chapel (London, 1883). 
30 



466 LAURENCE STERNE 

many times repeated that neither Sterne's friends nor his 
family cared enough for his memory to mark his grave. The 
assertion in this form is qnite untrue, for none knew Sterne 
well but to hold him at least in pleasant remembrance; and 
a stone was in fact projected, for which Gar rick wrote the 
brief epitaph, — 

"Shall Pride a heap of sculp tur'd marble raise, 
Some worthless, unmourn'd titled fool to praise; 
And shall we not by one poor grave-stone learn 
Where Genius, Wit, and Humour, sleep with Sterne?" — 

which Lydia, in the warmth of her heart, thought a " sweet' ' 
tribute to her father from one who "loved the man" as well 
as "admired his works". The project was abandoned, not 
because of indifference nor of a desire to leave Sterne undis- 
tinguished among the dead, but most likely because, in the 
belief of many, and perhaps on positive assurance from Cam- 
bridge, his body no longer reposed in St. George's parish. 
In succeeding years the want of a memorial to an author 
whom scores of pens were lauding in verse and prose was not 
understood by men unacquainted with rumours no longer in 
active currency. So it happened that Sterne was finally in- 
debted for a headstone, sometime near 1780, to two free- 
masons, who had read Sterne's books, but had never seen the 
man. Their inscription, summarising Sterne's literary 
career and attributing to him all the virtues of freemasonry, 
though he did not belong to the order, read as follows: 

Alas! Poor Yorick 

Near to this Place 

Lyes the Body of 

The Keverend Laurence Sterne, A.M. 

Dyed September 13th, 1768, 

Aged 53 Years. 



Ah! Molliter ossa quiescant! 
If a sound Head, warm Heart, and Breast humane, 
Unsullied Worth, and Soul without a Stain; 
If mental Powers could ever justly claim 



ILLNESS AND DEATH 467 

The well-won Tribute of immortal Fame, 
Sterne was the Man, who with gigantic Stride, 
Mowed down luxuriant Follies far and wide. 
Yet what, though keenest Knowledge of Mankind 
Unseal'd to him the Springs that move the Mind; 
What did it cost him? ridicul'd, abus'd, 
By Fools insulted, and by Prudes accus'd. 
In his, mild Reader, view thy future Fate, 
Like him despise, what 'twere a Sin to hate. 

This monumental Stone was erected to the memory of 
the deceased, by two Brother Masons; for although He did 
not live to be a Member of their Society, yet all his incom- 
parable Performances evidently prove him to have acted by 
Rule and Square: they rejoice in this opportunity of per- 
petuating his high and irreproachable character to after 
ages. W & S 

The monument was pronounced at the time "very un- 
worthy" of Sterne's memory, and the strangers who erected 
it have since been described as "tippling masons". It is 
quite difficult to see in the inscription anything to suggest 
tippling, nor does it appear on what grounds the brother- 
hood of masons may be called tipplers, if that be the insinua- 
tion. Why not take things as they are? The memorial was 
a simple slab such as the two men could easily afford; and 
the inscription, reflecting the bad taste of the authors and 
their ignorance of Sterne, was yet a sincere encomium from 
humble admirers of Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental 
Journey. Sterne's grave remained for more than a century 
much as the brother masons left it; but fifteen years ago the 
owner of his uncle Richard's seat near Halifax corrected the 
obvious mistakes in age and date of death on the head- 
stone, and erected a footstone having the more appropriate 
inscription : 



468 LAUEENCE STEENE 

In 

Memory of 

The Rev? Laurence Sterne, M.A. 

Rector of Coxwould, Yorkshire, 

Born November 24, 1713. 

Died March 18, 1768. 

The Celebrated Author 

of 

"Tristram Shandy" 

and 

"The Sentimental Journey " 

Works unsurpassed in the English language, 

For a Richness of Humour and a pathetic sympathy 

Which will ever render the Name of their Author 

Immortal. 

"Requiescat in pace." 

The Headstone to this grave 

Was Cleaned and Restored, by the owner of the "Sterne" 

Property, 

At Woodhall, near Halifax, in the County of York, 

Who also erected the foot and border stones 

In the Year 

1893. 

As if Sterne's death had been expected in the north, his 
Yorkshire parishes and the prebendal stall which he held in 
St. Peter's, were immediately filled by men who were waiting 
for them. On March 25, or within three or four days after 
the news of Sterne's death could have reached York, the Rev. 
Andrew Cheap was collated to Sutton-on-the-Forest, and Dr. 
William Worthington to the canonry and prebend of North 
Newbald. Two weeks afterwards Lord Fauconberg nominated 
the Rev. Thomas Newton to Coxwold, and the Archbishop of 
York signed the license on the nineteenth of April.* Into 
these transactions one might read unusual haste, were it not 
that ecclesiastical business of this kind was always quickly 

* Institutions of the Diocese of York, and York Courant, April 5, 
1768. 



ILLNESS AND DEATH 469 

despatched at York and elsewhere in the old days. None of 
Sterne's successors, family, or friends, as has been often re- 
marked, placed a mural tablet to his memory at Coxwold or at 
Sutton. This neglect, at first sight rather strange, is sufficiently 
accounted for by the fact that he died out of his parishes. 
Where the body lies should be the monument, was then the rule. 
Shandy Hall by the roadside beyond the church at Cox- 
wold, apparently never again used as the parsonage, was oc- 
cupied for a time by a local surgeon, who let it fall into 
disrepair. After his death, its owner, Sir George Wombwell of 
Newburgh Priory, a descendant of Lord Fauconberg, turned 
the old rambling house into labourers' tenements, blocking up 
in the process inner passages and turning two of the lead-pane 
windows into outer doorways. Fortunately the desecrat- 
ing hand barely touched Sterne's study with its great 
yawning fireplace; and in amends for the past, a bronze 
tablet has since been placed by the gateway, saying to all 
travellers : 

Shandy Hall 

Here dwelt Laurence Sterne 

Many Years incumbent 

of Coxwold. 

Here he wrote Tristram Shandy 

And the Sentimental Journey. 

Died in London in 1768 

Aged 55 Years 

Thus little by little the author of Tristram Shandy has 
been accorded those slight emblems of fame which untoward 
circumstances rather than anything else denied him im- 
mediately after death. Once or twice Sterne expressed a 
wish that, should he die at home, his body might be laid by 
the side of his great-grandfather, the archbishop, in the 
cathedral at York. Although hardly hoping for this honour, 
he seems to have expected that a marble replica of the 
Nollekens bust would sometime be placed to his memory near 
the tomb of his most distinguished ancestor. 



CHAPTER XXII 

LYDIA AND HER MOTHER. POSTHUMOUS SER- 
MONS AND LETTERS 

No will was found among Sterne's papers. On the fourth 
of June following his death, letters for the administration 
of his goods were granted the widow in the Prerogative 
Court of York, which was still presided over by Francis 
Topham, the meddler whom Sterne had silenced in the His- 
tory of a Good Warm Watch-Coat. Mrs. Sterne's sureties 
on the customary bond entered at the same time were two 
friends of the family, Arthur Ricard, father and son, attor- 
neys at York. The document was signed and sealed in the 
presence of Robert Jubb the notary, another of their friends. 
As indicative of the valuation placed upon Sterne's effects, 
the sureties jointly bound themselves to the sum of £500. No 
inventory of goods was ever exhibited for comparison with 
this valuation, but the estimate was nearly correct. Indeed, 
Sterne's personal effects had already been sold, and all claims 
upon his estate had been called in by Mr. Ricard the senior, 
to whom Mrs. Sterne delegated the details of administration. 
Thus, without strict legal authority, an auction was held out 
at Shandy Hall, on April 14, for the sale of "all the house- 
hold goods and furniture of the late Mr. Sterne, * * * with 
a cow, * * * a parcel of hay, a handsome post-chaise with a 
pair of exceeding good horses, and a compleat set of coloured 
table-china". To tempt purchasers, the china was placed on 
exhibition at a shop in York, and the horses at Bluitt's Inn 
in Lendal Street, whence the fastest post-chaises set out for 
London. Sterne's books, including the lot which he had 
purchased "dirt cheap" a few years before, were sold to 
Todd and Sotheran at the sign of the Golden Bible in Stone- 

470 




John Hall-Stevenson 
From a painting at Skelton Castlt 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHER 471 

gate, in whose catalogue for 1768 they were advertised to the 
public. From all these sales was realised about £400.* 

Against these assets were debts, Lydia wrote to Wilkes, 
amounting to £1100, which must have been the slow accumu- 
lation of several years. According to Sterne's account-book, 
which came under the eye of John Croft, the author received 
' ' £1500 of Dodsley at different times for his publications ' ' ; 
and Becket should have paid him quite as much more. The 
£3000 had all gone in visits to London, in foreign travel, and 
in the maintenance of wife and daughter abroad. Had the 
Sternes been good economists, their income from various 
sources might have proved adequate for their new mode of 
living, but they were all improvident. Ever since their first 
sojourn in France, the head of the family had been borrow- 
ing small sums from this or that acquaintance — ten, twenty, 
or fifty pounds here and there — and binding therefor the 
whole Shandy household until the appearance of a forth- 
coming instalment of his book. The Sentimental Journey, 
Sterne had hoped, would put him even with the world and 
enable him, after the sale of his real estate, to make per- 
manent provision for his family. In the midst of these 
expectations Sterne died, and the day of reckoning with his 
creditors was at hand for his widow. Wishing to avoid the 
disgrace of insolvency, Mrs. Sterne "nobly engaged" to pay 
off little by little all of her husband's debts out of the rent 
of the lands at Sutton and her own private estate, yielding 
£40 a year. At this juncture Hall-Stevenson came to the 
rescue of the "unhappy widow" by raising a handsome sub- 
scription for her and Lydia at the York races in the follow- 
ing August, said to have amounted to eight hundred or a 
thousand guineas, f 

Through this generous aid of friends, all of Sterne's per- 
sonal debts seem to have been promptly liquidated. There 

* The auction at Shandy Hall was advertised in the York Courant, 
April 12, 1768. Among Sterne's books which went to Todd and Sotheran 
were Beroalde's Moyen de Parvenir, Bouchet's Serees, and Bruscam- 
bille's Pensees Facetieuses. — See Willis's Current Notes, April, 1854. 

t For these and other details, see Lydia 's letters to Wilkes and Hall- 
Stevenson in J. Almon, The Correspondence of the late John Wilkes, 
V, 7-20 (London, 1805). See also Whitefoord Papers, 230-31; and 
Memoirs prefixed to Sterne's Works (Dublin, 1779). 



472 LAURENCE STERNE 

was, however, one claim against his estate which the widow 
stoutly resisted on the advice of her attorneys. The par- 
sonage-house at Sutton, which burned to the ground several 
years before, still lay in ashes, though Sterne "had been 
frequently admonished and required to rebuild" it. As 
vicar of the parish, Sterne was liable for any impairment 
to the value of the living during his incumbency. But in 
this case were two extenuating circumstances which might 
be pleaded against strict enforcement of the law. The house 
had been set on fire while Sterne was not in residence — by a 
careless curate or by some one else within his gates, from 
whom it was impossible to recover damages. Again, the 
house in ashes was not much worse than the house in ruins, 
such as Sterne found it when he entered upon the living at 
an expense for repairs which staggered him. Certainly it 
Avas not quite just to ask him to build anew to the impoverish- 
ment of his estate. Arguing in this way, Sterne easily found 
means for evading what some thought the performance of 
an obvious duty to his parish. At his death came the crisis. 
His successor, the Rev. Mr. Cheap, after vainly trying per- 
suasion with Mrs. Sterne, instituted a suit against her for 
dilapidations; whereupon, in order to escape the payment of 
damages, she was compelled to pocket her pride and make 
an oath of insolvency. Thus in danger of recovering noth- 
ing, the Rev. Mr. Cheap accepted from Mrs. Sterne £60 in 
satisfaction for the claim. All this was afterwards recorded 
by the angry vicar in the parish registry of Sutton in com- 
pany with his impressions of the Shandy household, and with 
the statement that the cost of the suit and of rebuilding 
reached the sum of £576. 13s. 5d. 

After the settlement of Sterne's estate, Mrs. Sterne and 
Lydia went into lodgings at York for the winter, with the 
intention of passing over to a secluded life in France, as soon 
as some slight provision might be made for the future beyond 
their small rents and the forty pounds per annum long in 
Mrs. Sterne's own right. Among Sterne's effects upon which 
an appraiser would have placed no value, were his manu- 
scripts, consisting of copies or drafts of letters, fragments or 
passages cast aside in the final revision of Tristram Shandy, 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHER 473 

notes and suggestions for the continuation of the Sentimental 
Journey, and an odd lot of eighteen sermons, which the 
author had rejected in making up his previous volumes for 
publication. Of such manuscripts as have survived, the 
letters are particularly interesting. Clearly anticipating 
their publication after his death, Sterne copied out many 
letters which had passed between himself and friends into a 
letter-book, prefaced with the following information for his 
wife and daughter: "Fothergil I know has some good ones 
Garrick some Berenger has one or two Gov. Lit- 
tleton's Lady (Miss Macartney) numbers Countess of 

Edgecomb Mrs. Moore of Bath Mrs. Fenton, London 

cum multis aliis. These all, if collected, with the large 

number of mine and friends in my possession would print 
and sell to good account. Hall has by him a great number, 

[which] with those in this book and in my Bureau and 

those above would make four vols, the size of Shandy 

they would sell well — and produce 800 pds. at the least."* 
The letters and all of Sterne's papers were carefully exam- 
ined by his survivors with a view to profit rather than to the 
enhancement of his fame. Such as appeared to be of no 
consequence Mrs. Sterne left at Shandy Hall, where, it has 
been said, they were used by the new incumbent as a lining 
for wall-paper in redecorating one of the rooms. The letters 
and a few fragments were preserved for subsequent con- 
sideration. The sermons it was decided to bring out the 
next season under the patronage of Sterne's friends. 

Many local subscribers sent in their names through the 
winter ; and then in the spring Mrs. Sterne and Lydia started 
for London to complete the list on the way to France. While 
in town, they lodged with a "Mr. Williams, paper-mer- 
chant ",t in Gerrard Street near the Jameses, who showed 
them every courtesy and kindness. Through the Jameses or 
on their own initiative, they met scores of Sterne's London 
acquaintances, to whom they told their melancholy story, and 
gained thereby the coveted subscriptions. In this business, 

* Some leaves of this old letter -book form a part of the Sterne Manu- 
scripts owned by J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. 

t The address is given in Wilkes's List of Addresses (British Mu- 
seum, Additional MSS., 30892). 



474 LAURENCE STEENE 

Lydia, who figured as the type of beauty in distress, took the 
leading part. Adopting the style and manner of her father, 
she sat in her lodgings despatching requests about town for 
aid in obtaining subscriptions, or for permission to visit her 
father's more influential friends in order to make a personal 
plea in the interest of her mother. "Mrs. and Miss Sterne's 
compliments", began a formal note in Lydia 's hand to John 
Wilkes, then in the King's Bench prison awaiting trial, "wait 
on Mr. Wilkes. They intend doing themselves the pleasure 
of calling upon him, if not disagreeable; and would be 
obliged to him if he would appoint an hour when he will not 
be engaged. They would not intrude; yet should be happy 
to see a person whom they honour, and whom Mr. Sterne 
justly admired. They will, when they see Mr. Wilkes, en- 
treat him to ask some of his friends to subscribe to three 
volumes of Mr. Sterne's Sermons, which they are now pub- 
lishing." After detailing the facts in regard to Sterne's 
large debts, the letter continued: "We have sold the copy- 
right for a trifle; our greatest hopes are, that we may have 
a good many subscribers. Several of our friends have used 
their interest in our behalf. The simple story of our situa- 
tion will, I doubt not, engage Mr. Wilkes to do what he can. ' ' 
On these and similar appeals the number of subscribers was 
brought up to seven hundred and twenty-nine, a larger, 
though not more distinguished, list than any that had 
appeared before Sterne's books during his lifetime. 

In negotiating with the publishers, Lydia came perilously 
near sharp practice. As first planned, the sermons were to 
go to Becket, who made a liberal offer for the copyright; 
but as the day of publication approached, he demanded a 
year's credit and otherwise assumed arbitrary airs, to the 
great annoyance of the widow and daughter, who stood in 
need of money to take them into France. Thereupon Lydia, 
resolving to sell the copyright to the highest bidder, sent 
Becket 's final terms to William Strahan, a rival publisher 
in the Strand, along with the following letter as yet 
unpublished : 

"I enclose you Mr. Beckett's proposal — when he last 
offer 'd £400 for the copyright he insisted on no such terms 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHEE 475 

as these this affair of not offering them to anyone else 

must be managed with the greatest caution — for you see he 
says that he will not take them if offer 'd elsewhere. He will 

be judge of the quantity and quality and insists on a 

year's credit. All these points my mother and myself most 

earnestly desire you to consider. Unless you could be 

pretty sure of getting us more than £400, the offering them 

might perhaps come to Becket 's knowledge yet believe 

me, Sir, we had rather anyone had them than Becket he 

is a dirty fellow." 

In the end was effected some sort of compromise, whereby 
Mrs. Sterne and Lydia doubtless received £400 in cash for 
the first edition and for the copyright, which was purchased 
by a small syndicate of publishers formed by Strahan, Cadell, 
and Becket. Under their joint auspices appeared, near the 
first of June, 1769, "Sermons by the late Rev. Mr. Sterne", 
comprising volumes five, six, and seven of the complete issue. 
Subscribers' books, it was announced in the newspapers, 
would be delivered by Becket. The price of the set was 
7s. 6d. 

Fearing this posthumous collection of miscellaneous ser- 
mons, Sterne humorously described them three years before 
as "the sweepings of the Author's study after his death". 
At that time, to judge from the extant manuscript* of the 
sermon on the "Temporal Advantages of Religion", written 
all over with corrections, he considered the publication of 
sermons contained in these volumes, revising, curtailing, and 
adding to them; but rightly decided after a little thought 
that they had better be kept from the light, for they were 
mostly ordinary parish homilies, good enough for the nonce, 
but altogether too commonplace for an audience that should 
include the nobility and gentry of the kingdom. And beyond 
this, the sermons abounded in repetitions, not only of thought 
but of phrase and sentence, sometimes to the extent of a 
paragraph or more. Half of the sermon entitled the "Thir- 
tieth of January", to cite an extreme instance, on the "great 
trespass" of our forefathers in putting to death Charles the 
First, was taken bodily over into "The Ingratitude of 

* Now in the private library of Mr. W. K. Bixby, of St. Louis. 



476 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Israel' '. Among these sermons, occurs, too, the most flagrant 
act of plagiarism that has ever been charged against Sterne. 
In 1697, Walter Leightonhonse, late Fellow of Lincoln Col- 
lege, Oxford, and then Prebendary of Lincoln, published 
twelve sermons which he had preached in his cathedral. It 
was a volume of rather mediocre sermons by a rather obscure 
clergyman, which Sterne freely appropriated on urgent occa- 
sions when a sermon must be prepared on short notice. How 
closely Sterne followed Leightonhouse may be seen by com- 
paring the two preachers on the text "Put thou thy trust in 
the Lord". 

The Prebendary of Lincoln began : 

"He that soberly sits down, and considers the State and 
Condition of Man; how that he is born unto trouble, as the 
sparks fly upwards, shall find his Life perpetually surrounded 
with so many sorrowful Changes and Vicissitudes, that 'twill 
be matter of the greatest Wonder, how the Spirit of Man 
could bear the Infirmities of Nature, and carry him through 
the Disappointments of this Valley of Tears. And indeed, 
had not the frame of our Constitution, and the Contexture 
of our Minds been curiously contrived by the Hand of an 
All- Wise Being; did not the Faculties of our upper Region 
greatly support our tottering building of Clay, 'tis impossible 
but the day of our Birth, would appear to be our greatest 
Misfortune, and the silent Grave be earnestly sought, and 
desired by each thinking son of Adam." 

The opening passage by the Prebendary of Lincoln was 
thus ably paraphrased and expanded by the Prebendary of 
York: 

"Whoever seriously reflects upon the state and condition 
of man, and looks upon that dark side of it, which represents 

his life as open to so many causes of trouble; when he 

sees how often he eats the bread of affliction, and that he is 

born to it as naturally as the sparks fly upwards ; that no 

rank or degrees of men are exempted from this law of our 

beings; but that all, from the high cedar of Libanus to 

the humble shrub upon the wall, are shook in their turns by 

numberless calamities and distresses: when one sits down 

and looks upon this gloomy side of things, with all the sor- 






LYDIA AND HER MOTHER 477 

rowful changes and chances which surround us, — at first 
sight, — would not one wonder, — how the spirit of man could 
bear the infirmities of his nature, and what it is that sup- 
ports him, as it does, under the many evil accidents which he 

meets with in his passage through the valley of tears? 

Without some certain aid within us to bear us up, — so ten- 
der a frame as ours would be but ill fitted to encounter what 
generally befalls it in this rugged journey: and accord- 
ingly we find, — that we are so curiously wrought by an all- 
wise hand, with a view to this, — that, in the very composition 
and texture of our nature, there is a remedy and provision 

left against most of the evils we suffer; we being so 

ordered, — that the principle of self-love, given us for pre- 
servation, comes in here to our aid, — by opening a door of 
hope, and, in the worst emergencies, flattering us with a belief 
that we shall extricate ourselves, and live to see better 
days. " 

The Prebendary of Lincoln, in closing, said: 

"And although the Fig-tree should not blossom, neither 
should fruit be in the Vine; although the Labour of the Olive 
should fail, and the Fields should yield no Meat; although 
the Flock should be cut off from the Fold, and there should 
be no Herd in the Stall; yet let us rejoice in the Lord, let us 
joy in the God of our Salvation.'" 

And the Prebendary of York, by this time aweary of his 
task, copied out his brother nearly word for word : 

" Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall 

fruit be in the vines; although the labour of the olive 

shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; although 

the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no 
herd in the stalls ; yet we will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in 
the God of our salvation. "* 

These are but examples of the manner in which Sterne 
revamped old sermons, whether written by himself or by 
others, in the business of his parish. A sermon entitled 
"Evil", to pursue the subject further, closes with a passage 

* For this comparison, see Sterne 's thirty-fourth sermon, and Leigh- 
tonhouse's twelfth sermon in Twelve Sermons preached at the Cathedral 
Church of Lincoln (London, 1697). See also HaoalcTcuk, 3, 17-18. 



478 LAUKENCE STEENE 

from a sermon on the "Advantages of Christianity " ; and 
across the manuscript of sermon forty-four, justifying the 
ways of Providence to man, Sterne wrote that it was mostly 
borrowed from Wollaston. Still other sermons, like "Pen- 
ances" and "On Enthusiasm", whether original or not in 
their phrasing, merely reflect the violent hatred against the 
Church of Eome prevalent in '45, a phase of passion through 
which Sterne had long since passed. And it seems almost 
impossible that a sermon could ever have come from Yorick's 
pen so tame and lifeless as the one on the '" Sanctity of the 
Apostles ' '. 

In compensation for these inanities, Sterne is still visible 
here and there at his very best. It is Sterne the humourist 
who, on rising into the pulpit, reads two texts for the sermon 
on "Evil" — one from St. Paul and one from Solomon — and 
then, looking over his congregation, says: "Take either as 
you like it, you will get nothing by the bargain." Again it 
is Sterne the eloquent preacher who draws a portrait of the 
young George the Third under the guise of Asa, the peaceful 
king, who received his sceptre from the warlike Abijah. 
"His experience told him", says the preacher weightily 
of the young king, "that the most successful wars, instead 
of invigorating, more generally drained away the vitals of 
government, — and, at the best, ended but in a brighter and 
more ostentatious kind of poverty and desolation: there- 
fore he laid aside his sword, and studied the arts of ruling 

Judah with peace. Conscience would not suffer Asa to 

sacrifice his subjects to private views of ambition, and wis- 
dom forbade he should suffer them to offer up themselves to 

the pretence of public ones; since enlargement of empire, 

by the destruction of its people (the natural and only valua- 
ble source of strength and riches), was a dishonest and 

miserable exchange. And however well the glory of a 

conquest might appear in the eyes of a common beholder, yet, 
when bought at that costly rate, a father to his country would 
behold the triumphs which attended it, and weep, as it passed 
by him." 

Finally, monotonies over "the degeneracy of the times" 
or "the wickedness of the world" are relieved by Sterne's 



LYDIA AND HER MOTHER 479 

descriptions of high life as he had seen it, wherein religion 
has become "a standing jest to enliven discourse when con- 
versation sickens", and wherein are admitted men however 
infamous their character, and women however abandoned, 
"to be courted, caressed, and nattered", always without 
question, if they can pay for it. These fashionable people, 
among whom a man of sobriety and temperance steers his 
course with difficulty, were exhorted in another sermon to 
search the Scriptures, if not for moral improvement, at least 
for aesthetic enjoyment. "There are two sorts of elo- 
quence", the preacher told them; "the one indeed scarce 
deserves the name of it, which consists chiefly in laboured and 
polished periods, an over-curious and artificial arrangement 
of figures, tinsell'd over with a gaudy embellishment of 
words, which glitter, but convey little or no light to the 
understanding. * * * It is a vain and boyish eloquence ; and 
as it has always been esteemed below the great geniuses of 
all ages, so much more so, with respect to those writers who 
were actuated by the spirit of infinite wisdom, and therefore 
wrote with that force and majesty with which never man 

writ. The other sort of eloquence is quite the reverse to 

this, and which may be said to be the true characteristic of 
the holy Scriptures; where the excellence does not arise from 
a laboured and far-fetched elocution, but from a surprising 
mixture of simplicity and majesty, which is a double char- 
acter, so difficult to be united, that it is seldom to be met with 
in compositions merely human." These two types of elo- 
quence Sterne then proceeded to illustrate in a running 
parallel between great passages in Greek and Hebrew litera- 
ture. If in the end he did not exactly prove the superiority 
of the Bible over the classical literatures, he most ably 
presented and defended a thesis novel to his audience. It 
would indeed be hard to find, as Cardinal Newman once 
pointed out, anything better than Sterne's on the "simplicity 
and majesty" of the Old Testament.* 

Besides publishing the sermons, Mrs. Sterne and Lydia 
had other projects in mind for easing their fortune, in one 
of which they were anticipated by Hall-Stevenson. It is 

* Sterne 's forty-second sermon and Newman 's Idea of a University. 



480 LAURENCE STERNE 

doubtful whether they could have pieced together in any sort 
of narrative the notes left by Sterne towards the concluding 
volumes of the Sentimental Journey, which had been prom- 
ised to subscribers at this time. Still, they must have been 
surprised when Eugenius appeared in London with the manu- 
script of Yorick' s Sentimental Journey completed in two 
volumes, to which was prefixed a short memoir of Sterne, 
remarkable for its inaccuracies and the advertisement that 
the work had been based upon the ''facts, events, and 
observations" of the last part of Mr. Sterne's travels abroad, 
as related to the author in the intimacy of friendship. Not- 
withstanding the claim, Hall-Stevenson did little more than 
retell the familiar incidents of the Sentimental Journey, 
everywhere vulgarising them. It was the author's plan to 
represent Yorick as revisiting the old scenes and describing 
the changes wrought by a year or two. The grisette of silken 
eyelashes was glad to see her old friend again and to sell him 
more gloves. Hearing at Moulins that Maria had just died 
of a broken heart, Yorick sought out her grave, that he might 
shed a tear upon it as a last tribute to virtue. Of the tour 
through Italy, for which all readers were expectant, there was 
no word. And yet, without serious censure, this impudent 
fraud upon the public easily passed current at home and on 
the Continent. 

Another project was suggested to the Sternes by Wilkes 
on one of their visits to his prison. He offered to write for 
their benefit the authorised biography of Sterne, provided 
Hall-Stevenson, who had just shown his biographical skill, 
could be drawn into partnership with him. Widow and 
daughter thereupon broached the scheme to the master of 
Skelton, who readily consented to have his name associated 
with the man most talked of in England. As her part in the 
undertaking, Lydia was to collect and arrange her father's 
correspondence supplementary to the memoir, and to draw 
a frontispiece for each volume. At near the same time, a 
new edition of Tristram Shandy was also to be brought out in 
six volumes, with six illustrations — the two well-known ones 
by Hogarth (Trim's reading the sermon, and the baptism of 
Tristram), and four new ones by Lydia, of which she sub- 



LYDIA AND HER MOTHER 481 

mitted three sentimental subjects to Wilkes for his approval : 
" Maria with the goat, with my father beside her"; "the 
sick-bed of poor Le Fevre * * * with Uncle Toby and Trim 
by his bedside"; and "Le Fevre 's son with the picture of his 
mother in his hand, the cushion by his bed-side on which he 
has just prayed". In the meantime, Becket was to be brow- 
beaten, on the threat of giving the work to another publisher, 
into promising £400 for the ' ' Life of Mr. Sterne ' ' written by 
"two men of such genius as Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Hall". 

These expectations, an observer might have seen, were 
doomed from the first to disappointment. Hall-Stevenson, 
though of the best intentions, was too indolent for the serious 
labours of a biographer; and Wilkes, just then the centre of 
the political universe, was too busy with his trial for out- 
lawry, and with manifestoes and Middlesex elections, to employ 
his pen for others. Lydia had none of the talent necessary 
for editing her father's letters, and her amateurish drawings 
would have excited ridicule when brought into competition 
with Hogarth's masterpieces. As yet not disillusioned, Mrs. 
Sterne and her daughter retired for an indefinite period to 
Angouleme in southern France, where they resumed the 
genteel life of other days. "Angouleme is a pretty town", 
Lydia wrote to Wilkes on July 22, 1769, not long after her 
arrival ; ' ' the country most delightful, and from the principal 
walk there is a very fine prospect; a serpentine river, which 
joins the Garonne at Bourdeaux, has a very good effect ; trees 
in the middle of it, which form little islands, where the 

inhabitants go and take the fresco: in short, 'tis a most 

pleasing prospect ; and I know no greater pleasure than sitting 
by the side of the river, reading Milton or Shakspeare to my 
mother. Sometimes I take my guitar and sing to her. Thus 
do the hours slide away imperceptibly ; with reading, writing, 
drawing, and music. * * * We receive much civility from 
the people here. We had letters of recommendation, which 
I would advise every English person to procure wherever he 
goes in France. We have visitors, even more than we wish 
as we ever found the French in general very insipid. I 

would rather choose to converse with people much superior 
31 



482 LAURENCE STERNE 

to me in understanding (that I grant I can easily do, so you 
need not smile)." 

Already the girl had misgivings about the biography. 
"It is now time", the letter went on to say, "to remind 
Mr. Wilkes of his kind promise — to exhort him to fulfil it. 
If you knew, dear sir, how much we are straitened as to our 
income, you would not neglect it. We should be truly happy 
to be so much obliged to you that we may join, to our ad- 
miration of Mr. Wilkes in his public character, tears of 
gratitude whenever we hear his name mentioned, for the 
peculiar service he has rendered us. Much shall we owe to 
Mr. Hall for that and many other favours ; but to you do we 
owe the kind intention which we beg you to put in practice. 
As I know Mr. Hall is somewhat lazy, as you were the pro- 
moter, write to him yourself: he will be more attentive to 
what you say." Lydia began to fear, too, that she would be 
unable to furnish the illustrations for the work without the 
assistance of a drawing-master. And the correspondence of 
her father, on further examination, was quite different from 
what she and her mother expected. "Entre nous", she in- 
formed Wilkes, "we neither of us wish to publish those 
Letters; but if we cannot do otherwise, we will, and prefix 
the Life to them." A note was earnestly requested from 
Wilkes, which should be addressed to "Mademoiselle Sterne, 
demoiselle Angloise, chez Mons. Bologne, Rue Cordeliers", 
to advise her in her perplexities over the drawings and the 
letters, and to assure her that in any case Mr. Wilkes would 
perform his part in the undertaking. 

Through the long summer into the autumn, Lydia looked 
every day for a reply from Wilkes which never came; while 
in the meantime ready money had disappeared, and all that 
had been placed with Panchaud was in danger of being lost 
by the banker's unexpected failure in July. In desperation, 
Lydia again wrote a pitiable letter to Wilkes, dated Octo- 
ber 24, 1769, to remind him once more of his obligations and 
to hold him up to them if possible. ' ' How long ' ', she pleaded 
with him, "have I waited with impatience for a letter from 
Mr. Wilkes, in answer to that I wrote him above two months 
ago! I fear he is not well; I fear his own affairs have not 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHEE 483 

allowed him time to answer me ; in short, I am full of fears. 
Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Three lines, with a 
promise of writing Tristram's Life for the benefit of his 

widow and daughter, would make us happy. A promise, 

did I say? that I already have: but a second assurance. 
Indeed, my dear sir, since I last wrote we stand more in need 
of such an act of kindness. Panchaud's failure has hurt us 
considerably : we have, I fear, lost more than, in our circum- 
stances, we could afford to lose. Do not, I beseech you, 
disappoint us: let me have a single line from you, 'I will 
perform my promise', and joy will take place of our sorrow. 
I trust you will write to Hall; in pity, do." 

Near the same time, the distressed girl wrote to Hall- 
Stevenson in similar vein. Autumn passed and winter came 
on with no word from either of her father's biographers. 
Upon Wilkes she could intrude no further, but to Hall- 
Stevenson was sent a last letter, requesting the courtesy of a 
reply if nothing more : 

"Angouleme, Feb. 13, 1770. 
"Dear Sir, 

■ ' 'Tis at least six months since I wrote to you on an inter- 
esting subject to us; namely, to put you in mind of a kind 
promise you made me, of assisting Mr. Wilkes in the scheme 
he had formed for our benefit, of writing the Life of Mr. 
Sterne. I wrote also to him; but you have neither of you 
favoured me with an answer. If you ever felt what 'hope 
deferred' occasions, you would not have put us under that 
painful situation. From whom the neglect arises, I know 
not; but surely a line from you, dear sir, would not have 
cost you much trouble. Tax me not with boldness for using 
the word neglect: as you both promised, out of the benevo- 
lence of your hearts, to write my father's Life for the benefit 
of his widow and daughter; and as I myself look upon a 
promise as sacred, and I doubt not but you think as I do ; in 
that case the word is not improper. In short, dear sir, I ask 
but this of you ; to tell me by a very short letter, whether we 
may depend on yours and Mr. Wilkes 's promise, or if we must 
renounce the pleasing expectation. But, dear sir, consider 



484 LAURENCE STERNE 

that the fulfilling of it may put £400 into our pockets; and 
that the declining it would be unkind, after having made us 
hope and depend upon that kindness. Let this plead my 
excuse. 

"If you do not choose to take the trouble to wait on Mr. 
Wilkes, send him my letter, and let me know the oui ou le 
non. Still let me urge, press, and entreat Mr. Hall, to be as 
good as his word: if he will interest himself in our behalf, 
'twill but be acting consistent with his character ; 'twill prove 

that Eugenius was the friend of Yorick nothing can prove 

it stronger than befriending his widow and daughter. Adieu, 
dear sir! Believe me your most obliged, humble servant, 
L. Sterne. 

"My mother joins in best compliments." 

This letter was turned over to Wilkes in accordance with 
Lydia's request; and therewith ended the project for a 
biography of Sterne, supplemented by his original letters 
and embellished with original drawings by his daughter. 
Throughout the transaction a reader's sympathy at this late 
date rests with Lydia and her mother, who were betrayed by 
two affable gentlemen who broke promises as readily as they 
made them. On the other hand, the conduct of widow and 
daughter, if not exactly censurable, had been lacking in good 
taste and respectful consideration for Sterne's memory. All 
along, their one aim had been to make the most out of his 
literary remains. His sermons, most of which should have 
been committed to the flames, had been put up at auction to 
the highest bidder; and the only object in now publishing 
his life and letters was to obtain another handsome sum. 
This eagerness to turn every scrap of manuscript into coin, 
not quite excusable on the ground of straitened circum- 
stances, was sufficient in itself to alienate many of Sterne's 
friends. Becket, merely because he asked for the credit to 
which he had been accustomed in Sterne's time, was called 
"a dirty fellow"; and Mrs. James, as well as Wilkes and 
Hall-Stevenson, grew tired of tales of hard fortune reiterated 
to monotony. To the further discredit of the Sternes, soon 
came out the secret of dealings with Mrs. Draper which must 
be stamped as dishonourable. 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHEE 485 

Mrs. Draper, after a long but pleasant voyage, our narra- 
tive should explain, had safely reached Bombay early in 
1768, "once more restored to health and strength". Her 
husband she found ' ' in possession of health and a good post ' ', 
and her sister Louisa, a widow after an unfortunate mar- 
riage, now in course of becoming wife to Colonel Pemble, 
then in command of the military forces at Bombay. "I live 
intirely in the Country with my dear Louisa", she wrote 
from High Meadow in the suburbs to her aunt Elizabeth, 
"bathe in the Sea daily, drink Milk, and have commenced 
Horsewoman". This agreeable life with a sister who had 
grown attractive in her widowhood, had to be given up in 
the autumn because of Draper's transference to Tellieherry, 
as chief of the factory at that station. But it so turned out 
that Mrs. Draper was never happier than during the first 
months in her new sphere, where according to the exigencies 
of the occasion, she played in turn the parts of "wife of a 
Merchant, soldier and Innkeeper, for in such different capa- 
cities", she wrote pleasantly, "is the chief of Tellieherry 
destined to act". And when her husband lost his two clerks, 
she took charge for a time of all his correspondence. This 
temporary position in his office she enjoyed much, she wrote 
home, because "it gives me consequence, and him pleasure". 
"The Country", to go on further with her intimate letters, 
"is pleasant, and healthy (a second Montpelier) ; our house 
(A Fort and property of the Company), a Magnificent one 
furnish 'd too at our Masters expence and the allowance for 
supporting it Creditably, what you would term genteely, tho' 
it does not defray the charges of our Liqours, which alone 
amount to 600 a year ; and such a sum, vast as it seems, is not 
extravagant in our situation, — for we are obliged to keep a 
Public Table — and six months in the Year, have a full 
house of shipping Gentry — that resort to us for traffic and 
Intelligence, from all parts of India, China, and Asia." 

In these new surroundings were resumed the recreations 
begun with her sister at High Meadow. "I ride on Horse- 
back daily", she informed her cousin Tom, "I bathe in the 
Sea, read Volumes, and fill Reams of Paper, writing scrib- 
ble." To her 'life at Tellieherry came additional zest from 



486 LAURENCE STERNE 

the perilous situation of the settlement at this time, for Hyder 
Ali and the fierce Mahrattas then held in subjection the 
territory about the town, and were infesting the coast as far 
north as Bombay, interfering with traffic on the sea and 
rendering unsafe passage from one station to another without 
a convoy. Under these circumstances, Mrs. Draper was 
always attended in her rides to the beach and in the neigh- 
bourhood by "a guard of six sepoys armed with drawn 
Sabres and loaded Pistols", while a faithful Malabar servant 
followed her everywhere like a shadow. In spite of these 
precautions for her safety, * ■ I was within an hour once ' ', she 

wrote of Hyder Ali, "of being his Prisoner and cannot 

say, but I thought it a piece of good fortune to escape that 
honour — tho' he has promised to treat all English Ladies 
well, that chearfully submit to the Laws of his Seraglio. " 
One letter speaks of sorrow for the death of "our poor little 
boy" left behind in England with his sister; and there were 
moments in this uncertain life when she longed for the 
flatteries of those who told her that she was born for the 
stage or the salon rather than for India; but as yet Mrs. 
Draper was content to reign as queen of the little settlement 
on the Malabar Coast. 

Yes : she was saying with Caesar that it was better to be 
first at Tellicherry than second at Bombay, where her sister 
now held the first place, riding "in an Ivory Pallenquin 
inlaid with Gold ' ', and glittering ' ' in Diamonds together with 

faring sumptuously every Day", she was saying all this 

grandiloquently when news reached her out of England, from 
letters and from all she talked with in the Company's ships, 
that Mrs. Sterne was threatening to make a public scandal of 
her relations with Yorick by publishing their tender cor- 
respondence. There was really nothing in those sentimental 
relations, Mrs. Draper averred in a letter to her cousin Tom, 
which could not be justified, were truth and candour her 
judges; but an ungenerous world, she was equally aware, 
would read whatever it pleased into her letters should they 
be once published. Under the impending exposure, Mrs. 
Draper suffered for months keen torture, during which she 
denounced the whole Sterne family, not omitting Yorick him- 



LYDIA AND HER MOTHEE 487 

self, because he had flattered her into an indiscreet cor- 
respondence. 

As soon, however, as she understood the reason for Mrs. 
Sterne's conduct, she gained her poise and acted accordingly. 
On receiving the news of Sterne's death, Mrs. Draper, 
supposing that Mrs. Sterne was also dead or " privately- 
confined" as an insane person, had immediately sent an invi- 
tation to Lydia to come out to the East and share her own 
prospects as friend and companion. At this letter Mrs. 
Sterne became furious since it contained no reference to 
herself, as if she were a nonentity; and Lydia in a belated 
reply resented the gratuitous interference. In this mood, 
Lydia and her mother came up to London under the patron- 
age of Mrs. James, who seems to have placed in their hands 
Mrs. Draper's letters to Sterne, discovered in his lodgings at 
death, together with the Journal to Eliza. There were also 
in London copies of Sterne's letters to Mrs. Draper, which 
Mrs. Draper herself had thoughtlessly made for some curious 
friend, just as she had sent one of them to her cousin Tom. 
These likewise seem to have come into possession of the widow 
and daughter. At any rate, all or the major part of the 
correspondence between Yorick and Eliza, it was rumoured, 
would appear among the original letters accompanying the 
biography by Wilkes and Hall- Stevenson. The truth of this 
rumour was subsequently confirmed either through Mrs. 
James or directly by Lydia, who sought to excuse herself and 
her mother on the score of necessity. Money must be had 
and the letters were now the only available source. Quick 
to take the hint, Mrs. Draper wrote to Mrs. James on the 
impulse of the moment: "0 my dear Friend, for God sake, 

pay them all the money of mine in your Hands would it 

were twice as much! the Ring too is much at Mrs. Sterne's 
service — as should be every thing I have in the world, rather 
than I would freely owe the shaddow of an obligation to 
her." 

On the tacit if not formal understanding that her letters 
should be deposited with Mrs. James, Mrs. Draper promised 
to pay Becket whatever he might hope to profit by their 
publication should they be offered to him, and to make up a 



488 LAUKENCE STERNE 

generous purse for the Sternes out of India. Fulfilling the 
essential half of the promise, she began sending Mrs. James 
various small bills for the benefit of Mrs. Sterne and Lydia, 
which in the course of two or three years amounted to twelve 
hundred rupees. Half of the sum came from the contribu- 
tions of acquaintances immediately surrounding her; and 
half was collected at her urgent request by Colonel Donald 
Campbell of Barbreck among his fellow officers at Bengal. 
As an inducement to his share in the work, Mrs. Draper drew 
a very flattering portrait of Lydia in one of her letters to 
Colonel Campbell, suggesting that he seek an introduction to 
Miss Sterne on his next visit to England and bring her back 
as his wife. And to prepare Lydia for his coming, she sent 
a similar portrait of the colonel to Mrs. James, saying: "He 
is, I think, one of ten thousand — sensible, sweet tempered, 
and Amiable, to a very great degree — added to which, lively, 
comical and accomplished — Young, Handsome, rich, and a 

Soldier ! What fine Girl would wish more ? ' '* 

For this happy sequel to a transaction which humiliated 
Mrs. Draper as much as it discredited Mrs. Sterne, Colonel 
Campbell arrived in England a year or more too late. Ap- 
parently in the autumn of 1770, Mrs. Sterne and Lydia left 
Angouleme, migrating south to Albi, a lovely brick-built town 
on the Tarn, not far from their old friends at Toulouse. As 
at Angouleme, "they were welcomed", it has been said, "to 
the best society" among "a quiet, pious people". This may 
well be true, though no letter of theirs dated at Albi has been 
discovered to confirm the statement. The archives of the 
town, however, furnish startling information in regard to 
Lydia. On April 28, 1772, she abjured the Protestant re- 
ligion in the private chapel of the provost's house, and was 
thereupon admitted to the Roman Catholic Church in order 
to remove the last obstacle to her marriage on the same day 
and in the same place with a certain Jean Baptiste Alexandre 
de Medalle, described as only twenty years old, while Lydia 
was in her twenty-fifth year. The young man belonged to 

* Colonel Campbell was then twenty-two years old. There is an 
account of him in James Douglas, Bombay and Western India I, 425-27 
(London, 1893). 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHES 489 

a good family, being the son of a gentleman employed in the 
Customs at Albi under the title of receveur des decimes. 
"Le mariage", it stands written in the Inventaire des 
Archives Communales d'Albi, "etait force, urgent; car alors 
la loi autorisait la recherche de la paternite."* Attempts 
have been made to explain away this extraordinary gloss on 
the marriage ; but its meaning should be clear to all who read, 
as much as if it said in an Englishman's blunt French: 
" Mademoiselle Sterne etait deja a Vepoque de son mariage 
en chemin de devenir mere." By one of the ironies of fate 
a letter was on its way from Mrs. Draper at the very time 
of the inauspicious marriage, recommending to Miss Sterne 
the favourable reception of Colonel Campbell. 

Mrs. Sterne, it was stated, did not witness the scene in the 
provost's chapel. Since coming into France she seems to 
have been relapsing into her old malady, and to have been 
thus spared the painful knowledge that Lydia had abjured 
the faith of her childhood as the only means of preserving 
her honour before the world. It is to be hoped that this was 
the case, rather than that the marriage led to an estrange- 
ment between mother and daughter and a voluntary life 
apart during the few months that were yet left for the 
mother. Sometime in the following January, Mrs. Sterne 
died, at the house of a physician named Lionieres, at No. 9 
Rue St. Antoine, within sight of the noble towers of Sainte 
Cecile. So ended the life of the vivacious Miss Lumley of 
the York Assembly Rooms, whose unhappiness began with 
her husband's fame. 

As a dramatic close to the career of Lydia, has grown up 
a story that she and her husband took an active part in the 
French Revolution and fell victims to the Reign of Terror. 
In place of this legend can be presented only a few disjointed 
facts, not half so striking as the conclusion to the old his- 
torical romances dealing with the French Revolution, and 1 yet 
really quite as tragic as any of them. During the autumn 

* For the record of Lydia 's marriage, the birth of a son, and Mrs. 
Sterne's death, see Athenceum June 18, 1870; and Notes and Queries, 
fourth series, VI, 153 and XII, 200. The search in the archives of 
Albi was originally made by Paul Stapfer. His account as published 
contains several inaccuracies which are here corrected. 



490 LAUEENCE STEENE 

after her mother's death, Mrs. Medalle, as the sole heir, dis- 
posed of all the real estate at Sutton-on-the-Forest, most likely 
through the squire of Stillington, who had hitherto repre- 
sented the Sternes in Yorkshire. The Tindall or Dawson 
farm and the lands purchased of Richard Harland were con- 
veyed by herself and husband (described in the deed as 
"gentleman") to the mortgagees, Dean Fountayne and 
Stephen Croft, The dwellings and closes which came to 
Sterne under the Sutton Enclosure Act were purchased in 
part by Thomas Proud of Newburgh and in part by Robert 
Wright of Claxton. All the conveyances bore as witnesses 
to the signatures of the Medalles, it may be of interest to 
note, the names of Jean Francois Gardes and Guierre Limory 
of Albi, who, we may suppose, were friends of the family.* 
Of Lydia's youthful husband our narrative has only one 
word more. He died a year and some months later, leaving 
with his widow a son born soon after the marriage. 

Mrs. Medalle now took up again her father's correspond- 
ence, the publication of which had been deferred rather than 
abandoned on the withdrawal of Wilkes and Hall- Stevenson 
from the undertaking. For performing the labour alone she 
received much encouragement from the attitude of the public, 
which was absorbing every year sentimental tales and jour- 
neys put out in imitation of the original, while an anecdote 
of the humourist or a letter purporting to be his found ready 
admittance to newspapers and magazines. The first number of 
the Lady's Magazine, for example, which was started in 1770, 
opened with "A Sentimental Journey by a Lady", and three 
years later a periodical called The Sentimental Magazine was 
launched for promoting the sentimental style and philosophy 
of the "inimitable" Yorick. The eagerness of the public to 
read something more of Sterne 's, or to know more about him, 
led to many forgeries, of which may be mentioned an imag- 
inary autobiography, eked out by moral sayings, that appeared 
in 1770, bearing the title of The Posthumous Works of a late 
Celebrated Genius, since known as The Koran, under which 
name the forgery has been several times published in editions 

* Three deeds comprising the transaction were registered at North- 
allerton, one on May 4, and the other two on May 30, 1774. 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHEE 491 

of Sterne's works aiming at completeness. Its author, it 
should have been known, was Richard Griffith the elder, who 
betted with a friend that he could write a book which ' ' would 
pass current on the world as a writing of Mr. Sterne ' ' ; and 
won (as he said himself) the bet.* Not much, however, really 
Sterne's, appeared between 1769 and February 1775, when a 
sensation was caused by the publication of ten letters from 
Sterne to Mrs. Draper, which served to float more forgeries, 
sometimes interspersed with genuine scraps. 

As if her arrival had been timed to profit most by this 
awakened interest in Sterne, Mrs. Medalle came to London 
sometime during the spring of 1775, with a rare collection of 
letters, which she and Mrs. Sterne had brought together before 
going into France, and to which additions were still to be 
made through the summer. The daughter of Sterne took 
genteel lodgings, sat for her portrait, and altogether dis- 
played her father's skill in whetting the public appetite for 
a new book by talk about it long in advance of publication. 

"Speedily will be published", as she and Becket phrased 
the advertisement for the newspaper, "Embellished with an 
elegant engraving of Mrs. Medalle, from a picture by Mr. 
West, (with a dedication to Mr. Garrick) Some Memoirs of 
the Life and Family of the late Mr. Laurence Sterne. 
Written by Himself. To which will be added, 1. Genuine 
Letters to his most intimate friends on various subjects, with 
those to his wife, before and after marriage; as also those 
written to his daughter. 2. A Fragment, in the manner of 
Rabelais. Now first published by his daughter (Mrs. Me- 
dalle) from the originals in her father's hand- writing. 

"Printed for T. Becket, Adelphi, in the Strand. 

"Mrs. Medalle begs leave to return her most grateful 
thanks to those Ladies and Gentlemen who have already 
favoured her with so many of her father's letters, and still 
intreats those who may have any by them, to send them to her 
Bookseller as above, (as speedily as possible) that they may 
be inserted in the edition now prepared for the press." 

After repeated advertisements of this kind, the letters 

* See Griffith's anonymous Something New, II, 152 (second edition, 
London, 1772). 



492 LAURENCE STERNE 

and miscellanies — three volumes in the whole — were at length 
published on October 25, 1775. The title was varied from 
the announcement to "Letters of the late Rev. Mr. Lau- 
rence Sterne, to his most intimate Friends. With a Frag- 
ment in the Manner of Rabelais. To which are prefix 'd, 
Memoirs of His Life and Family. Written by Himself. 
And Published by his Daughter, Mrs. Medalle." The por- 
trait by West, which was engraved by Caldwell for a frontis- 
piece, represented Lydia in the fashionable dress of the 
period bending over the bust of her father, with one hand 
resting on his laurelled head and the other holding a sheet of 
manuscript. In no better taste was the dedication to Garrick, 
which aimed helplessly at the whimsical style of Sterne. A 
brief preface, following Garrick 's epitaph, assured the public 
that the authenticity of the letters might be depended upon. 
Some of them, said Mrs. Medalle, had been preserved by her 
mother, and others had been furnished by her father 's friends, 
from whom she had "experienced much benevolence and 
generosity". Then followed two elegies, reprinted from the 
magazines, in one of which Sterne was ranked next to Shake- 
speare. After these introductory details, came the brief 
autobiography that Sterne wrote near his death to satisfy 
Lydia 's curiosity, and one hundred and eighteen letters, if 
we count An Impromptu forming part of a letter which was 
sent to the publisher by a certain S. P., living at Exeter. 
The third volume concluded with The Fragment in the Man- 
ner of Rabelais, which appears to have been a discarded 
digression originally written for the fourth volume of Tris- 
tram Shandy. 

The autobiography was a masterly piece of condensation, 
what the French call a precis, wherein one continuous para- 
graph, running over a few pages, sufficed the author for the 
story of his ancestry and of his life down to the first visit to 
France, to say nothing of whimsical comment and anecdote 
by the way. No wonder that the marvellous sketch, as the 
first authentic revelation of Sterne in the pre-Shandean 
period, was widely quoted in magazines and newspapers, 
where it was usually given the place of honour on the first 
page. And for Sterne in his intimacies were the sentimental 



LYDIA AND HEE MOTHEE 493 

outpourings of the young Prebendary of York in letters to 
Miss Lumley while she was away in the country ; descriptions 
of his doings in London in the first flush of his fame, sent 
down to his friend Stephen Croft, the squire of Stillington; 
reckless impromptus to Hall-Stevenson and the London smart 
set; promises of amendment to Warburton; his first French 
triumph all written out for Garrick; and his last letter to 
Mrs. James as he lay dying. Surely no one could ask for 
more. Walpole of course intended a compliment when he 
wrote to Mason two days after publication: "I have run 
through a volume of Sterne's Letters, and have read more 
unentertaining stuff." 

In view of the rich material that Mrs. Medalle thus pre- 
sented to the public, perhaps one should not be too insistent 
on her shortcomings as an editor. Misprints, mistakes in 
French phrases, and misnumbering of letters may be set 
down, if one wishes, to the ignorance of the compositor. 
Neither should a reader complain overmuch because proper 
names were suppressed, or indicated by their first and last 
letters or by an initial before a dash or a line of stars, for 
such was the custom of the day. People then liked to guess 

that D d G k, Esq., meant David Garrick, Esq., and 

to count the eight stars of the Earl of s******** 
into the Earl of Shelburne. The task of editing Sterne's 
letters, it must be admitted further, would have been difficult 
for anyone however skilled, since many of them bore no date. 
Still Mrs. Medalle can not be excused for making slight at- 
tempt to place them in chronological sequence, for throwing 
them together, as it were, helter-skelter, so that they tell no 
continuous story. She began by assigning the Croft letters 
of 1760 to the indefinite period before the appearance of 
Tristram Shandy, and, with some improvements here and 
there, she proceeded in this slip-shod path to the end. It 
would, indeed, be difficult to find in the entire range of liter- 
ary biography a more shiftless piece of work. 

To incompetency Mrs. Medalle added an amusing dis- 
honesty wherever her mother or Mrs. Draper was concerned. 
The merry references to Mrs. Sterne were eliminated from all 
the correspondence except the Latin epistle to Hall-Stevenson, 



494 LAUEENCE STERNE 

which Lydia evidently could not read, else she would never 
have permitted to stand: "Nescio quid est materia cum me, 
sed sum fatigatus et cegrotus de med uxore plus quam un- 
quam. ' ' And in all the sentimental passages on Eliza, her por- 
trait, and her journal, the editor either substituted her own 
name or removed the warmth of phrase, leaving them quite 
cool and harmless. Just how she did this, it will be pleasant 
to see. To a letter from Coxwold to the Jameses in the sum- 
mer of 1767, Sterne appended a long postscript from which 
we have already quoted : 

"I have just received as a present from a right Honour- 
able a most elegant gold snuff fabricated for me at Paris 

I wish Eliza was here, I would lay it at her feet however, 

I will enrich my gold Box, with her picture, and if the 

Donor does not approve of such an acquisition to his pledge 
of friendship — I will send him his Box again 

"May I presume to inclose you the Letter I write to Mrs. 

Draper 1 know you will write yourself and my Letter 

may have the honour to chaperon yours to India. Mrs. Sterne 
and my daughter are coming to stay a couple of months with 

[me], as far as from Avignion — and then return Here's 

Complaisance for you 1 went five hundred miles the last 

Spring, out of my way, to pay my wife a week's visit — 
and she is at the expence of coming post a thousand miles 

to return it — what a happy pair! however, en passant, 

she takes back sixteen hundred pounds into France with her 
— and will do me the honour likewise to strip me of every 
thing I have — except Eliza's Picture. Adieu." 

After passing through Lydia 's hands, the postscript came 
out reduced to the following brief paragraph : 

"I have just received, as a present from a man I shall 
ever love, a most elegant gold snuff box, fabricated for me at 

Paris 'tis not the first pledge I have received of his 

friendship. May I presume to enclose you a letter of chit- 
chat which I shall write to Eliza? I know you will write 
yourself, and my letter may have the honour to chaperon 

yours to India they will neither of them be the worse 

received for going together in company, but I fear they will 



LYDIA AND HER MOTHER 495 

get late in the year to their destined port, as they go first to 
Bengal." 

The motives for most of these changes are apparent 
enough. But why "a right Honourable" — meaning, it would 
seem, Sir George Macartney — should be turned into "a man 
I shall ever love" is an enigma. Whether mutilations like 
this extend generally through the letters edited by Mrs. 
Medalle, there are no means of determining, for few of the 
originals are now extant. It would of course be unfair to 
infer from one or two instances that Lydia everywhere played 
fast and loose with the text; it is more likely that she was 
content, unless her mother and Mrs. Draper were involved, 
merely to improve her father's style by substituting here and 
there a commonplace expression for his piquant phrases. 

Her mission to England over, Mrs. Medalle returned to 
Albi. The rest of her story may be told, so far as one knows 
it, in a single sentence. Her son was placed in the Benedic- 
tine school at Soreze, where he died in 1783, his mother, it 
was expressly stated, being already dead. Asthmatic from 
childhood, Lydia had doubtless succumbed to the same disease 
that her father so long struggled against only to be overcome 
in the end. The little boy, "not made to last long", any 
more than were Sterne's brothers and sisters, was the last 
descendant of the humourist. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MRS. DRAPER 

Mrs. Draper, too, was already dead after an eventful 
career since we last saw her as queen of Tellicherry, attended 
in her progresses by a guard of sepoys. In 1771, her hus- 
band was appointed chief of the factory at Surat, the most 
lucrative position he had yet held, whence she wrote on her 
birthday a long letter to her cousin Tom descriptive of a 
typical day with friends amid the new scenes.* Every morn- 
ing she rose with the lark and ambled out on her palfrey eight 
or ten miles, after the fox sometimes, and at rarer intervals 
joining large parties in the hunt for antelopes with leopards. 
At night there was an occasional dance followed by supping 
on a cool terrace till daybreak. But despite exercise in the 
open air and an abstemious diet, consisting of "soupe and 
vegetables with sherbet and milk", her health, she com- 
plained, was breaking under the fierce heats of Surat; and 
scandal, do what she might, persisted in pursuing her, all 
because she liked the conversation of sensible men better than 
the unmeaning chit-chat of the women around her. Far 
from being the "gay, dissipated, agreeable woman" that she 
was accounted by "the worldly wise", she would have much 
preferred to the life she was living at Surat the quiet of a 
"thatched palace" in England, with her books and an 
appreciative husband who could moralise with her the rural 
scene. 

The next year, Draper was removed from his position at 
Surat and recalled to Bombay, not because of any inefficiency 
on his part, but owing, it was said, to a cabal formed against 
him. "We are adventurers again", Mrs. Draper wrote home 

* The account of Mrs. Draper is based mostly upon manuscript let- 
ters described in the bibliography. See also a chapter on Mrs. Draper 
and incidental references to her in James Douglas, Bombay and Western 
India. 



MRS. DRAPER 497 

from Bombay, "and so much to seek for Wealth as we were 
the first Day of our landing here". Neither husband nor 
wife was able to withstand adversity, though but temporary. 
There were hot altercations between them, culminating in 
criminations and recriminations which need be touched on 
but lightly. The ostensible point of dispute, to begin with, 
was over Mrs. Draper 's return to England. Her husband, 
she claimed, had distinctly promised her that she might be 
with her daughter on her twelfth birthday, occurring in 
October, 1773. A longer sojourn in India, she often repeated, 
would mean a ruined constitution and quick-coming death. 
Draper, who perhaps did not deny his promise, pleaded the 
expense of the journey and of a life apart. If his wife's 
health were declining, she might follow the advice of her 
physician and visit the neighbouring hot springs, which were 
as good as any in England. 

The troubles between husband and wife were reaching an 
acute stage in the spring of 1772, when Mrs. Draper described 
her unhappy situation in two letters home — one to her cousin 
Tom and one to Mrs. James, which, taken together, really 
constitute an autobiography covering more than a hundred 
pages of print. Now thoroughly disillusioned, Mrs. Draper 
passed in review her trivial education, the ill-starred mar- 
riage to a "cool, phlegmatic " official, who was accusing her 
of intrigues which she had no opportunity of committing were 
she disposed to them, the friendship with Sterne, the efforts 
to aid his widow and daughter, her literary aims and ambi- 
tions, and the sorrow that was fast settling close upon her. 
Of Sterne she said, "I was almost an Idolator of His Worth, 
while I fancied him the Mild, Generous, Good Yorick, we had 
so often thought him to be". But "his Death", she must 
add with words underscored, "gave me to know, that he was 
tainted with the Vices of Injustice, meanness and Folly". Of 
herself and husband, she wrote to Mrs. James: "I cannot 
manage to acquire confirmed Health in this detested Coun- 
try ; and what is far worse, I cannot induce Mr. Draper to let 
me return to England; tho* he must be sensible, that both my 
Constitution and Mind, are suffering by the effects of a 
Warm Climate 1 do, and must wonder that he will not, 

32 



498 LAURENCE STERNE 

for what good Purpose my Residence here can promote, I am 
quite at a loss to imagine, as I am disposed to think favor- 
ably of Mr. D's Generosity and Principles. My dear James, 
it is evident to the whole of our Acquaintance, that our 
Minds are not pair 'd, and therefore I will not scruple inform- 
ing you — that I neither do, nor will any more, if I can help 

it live with him as a Wife my reasons for this are cogent ; 

be assured they are; — or I would not have formed the Reso- 
lution 1 explain them not to the World — tho' I could do 

it, and with credit to myself; but for that very cause I will 

persevere in my silence as I love not selfish Panegyricks. 

How wretched must be that Woman's Fate, my dear 

James, who loving Home, and having a Taste for the Acquit- 
ments [sic], both useful and Agreable, can find nothing 
congenial in her Partner's Sentiments — nothing companion- 
able, nothing engagingly domestic in his Manner, to endear 
his Presence, nor even any thing of that Great, or respectful 
sort, which creates Public Praise, and by such means, often 
lays the Foundation of Esteem, and Complacency at Home. ,, 
The sad record was relieved by many charming feminine 
traits of character and ennobled by the mother yearning to 
be with her daughter left behind in England. 

One aspect of the self-drawn portrait has especial interest 
somewhat apart from the approaching crisis in her relations 
with her husband. Since her return to India Mrs. Draper 
had developed into a Blue-Stocking. She had of course no 
personal acquaintance with Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, whose 
assemblies of Blue-Stockings were then famous ; but the Essay 
on the Writings and Genius of Shakespear duly reached 
India. After reading Mrs. Montagu's book, Mrs. Draper 
declared that she " would rather be an Attendant on her 
Person, than the first Peeress of the Realm". And so under 
this new inspiration Mrs. Draper resumed the scribbling to 
which she had been encouraged by Sterne. "A little piece 
or two" that she "discarded some years ago", were com- 
pleted; they were "not perhaps unworthy of the press", but 
they were never printed. Though these efforts seem to be 
lost, Mrs. Draper took advantage of the occasion to weave 
into her letter to Mrs. James various little essays, which may 



MES. DEAPEE 499 

be described in her phrase as "of the moral kind", because 
they have to do with practical conduct. Anxiety for the 
welfare of her daughter Betsey, who had been put to school 
at Kensington, leads to several pages on the boarding-school 
and the parlour-boarder, which are good enough to find a 
place in one of Mrs. Chapone's essays. A little way on, she 
relates the "story of a married pair, which", she says, 
"pleased me greatly, from the sensible singularity of it". 
The tale tells of a wealthy and indolent man in North India 
who married a smart young woman to "rouse his mind from 
its usual state of Inactivity" — and he succeeded. The wife, 
too, discarded her light airs, and became a most agreeable 
woman. It all reads like a character sketch from Margaret, 
Duchess of Newcastle. There is also an experiment in the 
sentimental style, wherein is told the story of " a smart pretty 
French woman", who, shutting out all promiscuous loves and 
friendships, kept her heart for her dear husband alone and 
one "sweet woman" across the Alps. "The lovely Jana- 
tone", writes Mrs. Draper, "died three Years ago — after 
surviving her Husband about a Week and her Friend a 
twelvemonth." This constant couple, she said, were travel- 
ling in England when she was there, and Sterne introduced 
them to her. And besides these, there are other sketches 
from life, and vivid descriptions of society at Bombay. If 
Eliza did not write exactly, as Sterne flattered her, "with an 
angel's pen", she knew how to ramble agreeably. 

Crudities that appear in Mrs. Draper's written speech 
were not observable in her conversation, which charmed the 
circle of young civilians and travellers who gathered round 
her at Bombay. To her more intimate friendship was ad- 
mitted a certain George Horsley, who used to sit and read 
poetry to her. Illness sent him back to England, with 
extravagant letters of recommendation from her to the 
Sclaters and the Jameses, as a young man possessing "one of 
the most active Minds and Generous Hearts that ever I knew 
inhabit a human Frame". To his care she entrusted dia- 
mond rings and other jewels valued at £600, which he was 
to sell for her in England. She gave her passport, too, to a 
Mr. Gambier, "a fine youth and dear to me and all who know 



500 LAURENCE STERNE 

him on the score of his Worth, strict Principles, and Admira- 
ble Manners". Much greater men than these, typical of 
many, came under her spell. James Forbes, author of 
Oriental Memoirs, knew her well when a young man, and 
remembered to the end her "refined tastes and accomplish- 
ments".* Likewise the Abbe Raynal, the historian of the 
Indies, made her acquaintance at Bombay, and experienced 
at their first meeting a sensation which puzzled him. "It 
was too warm", he said, "to be no more than friendship; it 
was too pure to be love. Had it been a passion, Eliza would 
have pitied me; she would have endeavoured to bring me 
back to my reason, and I should have completely lost it." 
And of the personality that awakened his admiration, the 
ecclesiastic added: "Eliza's mind was cultivated, but the 
effects of this art were never perceived. It had done nothing 
more than embellish nature; it served in her case only to 
make the charm more lasting. Every instant increased the 
delight she inspired; every instant rendered her more 
interesting, "t 

Mrs. Draper's sentimental friendships with young men, 
from whom she accepted costly presents, were quite sufficient 
to occasion comment and arouse suspicions in her husband, 
though there may have been, as she always averred, no harm 
in her conduct beyond impropriety from the standpoint of 
convention. On the other hand, to restate her side of the 
story, her husband had been engaged, ever since her return 
to India, in one coarse intrigue after another. During their 
last year together — for it had come to that — the Drapers 
lived at Marine House, Mazagon, sometimes called Belvidere 
House, commanding a fine prospect of Bombay and its 
harbour. Through the year Mrs. Draper continued to insist 
on her husband's fulfilment of his promise with reference to 
the visit to England, and he continued to remain hopelessly 
immovable in his refusal. The long impending crisis came 
early in January, 1773, when the time for Mrs. Draper's 
sailing was at hand, were she to arrive in England by her 

* Oriental Memoirs, I, 338-39 (London, 1813). 

t Raynal, Histoire Philosophique et Politique, * * * des Europeens 
dans les deux Indes, II, 88-89 (new edition, Avignon, 1786). 



MRS. DRAPER 501 

daughter's birthday. On the evening of Monday, the eleventh 
of January, occurred an altercation between husband and 
wife in which each, it would seem, accused the other of mis- 
conduct, Mr. Draper naming Sir John Clark of the British 
navy, and Mrs. Draper retaliating with the name of Miss 
Leeds, one of her women in attendance, whom she claimed 
had fabricated the story against herself out of jealousy. 
Driven to desperation, Mrs. Draper fled from Marine House 
on the night of the following Thursday, and placed herself 
under the protection of her admirer, thus lending colour to 
the suspicions of her husband. She escaped, it was said at 
the time, by letting herself down to the officer's ship by a 
rope from her window.* 

Three letters are extant which Mrs. Draper wrote on the 
evening of her elopement, In the first of them, she gave "a 
faithful servant and friend", one Eliza Mihill, about to re- 
turn to England, an order on George Horsley for all her 
jewels. " Accept it, my dear woman", wrote Mrs. Draper, 
"as the best token in my power, expressive of my good- will 
to you." To Mr. Horsley she addressed a brief, impassioned 
note explaining what she had done for Betty Mihill and 
what she was about to do for her own freedom. The third 
letter, which was left behind for Mr. Draper in justification 
of her conduct, was composed under great agitation of mind 
at the moment of the last perilous step, for which she took 
full responsibility. After beseeching that her husband tem- 
per justice with mercy if he believed her "all in fault", Mrs. 
Draper proceeded to plead her cause : 

"I speak in the singular number, because I would not 
wound you by the mention of a name that I know must be 
displeasing to you; but, Draper, believe me for once, when I 
solemnly assure you, that it is you only who have driven me 
to serious Extremities. But from the conversation on Mon- 
day last he had nothing to hope, or you to fear. Lost to 
reputation, and all hopes of living with my dearest girl on 
peaceable or creditable terms, urged by a despair of gaining 
any one point with you, and resenting, strongly resenting, 
I own it your avowed preference of Leeds to myself, I myself 

* David Price, Memoirs * * * of a Field Officer, 61 (1839). 



502 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Proposed the scheme of leaving you thus abruptly. Forgive 
me, Draper, if its accomplishment has excited anguish; but 
if pride is only wounded by the measure, sacrifice that I 
beseech you to the sentiment of humanity, as indeed you 
may, and may be amply revenged in the compunction I shall 
feel to the hour of my death, for a conduct that will so utterly 
disgrace me with all I love, and do not let this confirm the 
prejudice imbibed by Leed 's tale, as I swear to you that was 
false, though my present mode of acting may rather seem 
the consequence of it than of a more recent event. Oh ! that 
prejudice had not been deaf to the reasonable requests of a 
wounded spirit, or that you, Draper could have read my very 
soul, as undisguisedly, as sensibility and innocence must ever 
wish to be read! 

1 'But this is too like recrimination which I would wish to 
avoid. I can only say in my justification, Draper, that if 
you imagine I plume myself on the Success of my scheme, 
you do me a great wrong. My heart bleeds for what I sup- 
pose may possibly be the sufferings of yours, though too 
surely had you loved, all this could never have been. My 
head is too much disturbed to write with any degree of 
connection. No matter, for if your own mind does not sug- 
gest palliatives, all I can say will be of little avail. I go, 
I know not whither, but I will never be a tax on you, Draper. 
Indeed, I will not, and do not suspect me of being capable 
of adding to my portion of infamy. I am not a hardened or 
depraved creature — I never will be so. The enclosed are the 
only bills owing that I know of, except about six rupees to 
Doojee, the shoemaker. I have never meant to load myself 
with many spoils to your prejudice, but a moderate provision 
of linen has obliged me to secure part of what was mine, to 
obviate some very mortifying difficulties. The pearls and 
silk cloathes are not in the least diminished. Betty's picture, 
of all the ornaments, is the only one I have ventured to make 
mine. 

"I presume not to recommend any of the persons to you 
who were immediately officiating about me; but this I con- 
jure you to believe as strictly true, that not one of them or 
any living soul in the Marine House or Mazagon, was at all 



MRS. DRAPER 503 

privy to my scheme, either directly or indirectly, nor do I 
believe that any one of them had the smallest suspicion of 
the matter; unless the too evident Concern occasioned by my 
present conflict induced them to think Something extra- 
ordinary was in agitation. ! Draper ! a word, a look, 
sympathetick of regret on Tuesday or Wednesday would have 
saved me the perilous adventure, and such a portion of re- 
morse as would be sufficient to fill up the longer life. I 
reiterate my request that vindictive measures may not be 
pursued. Leave me to my fate I conjure you, Draper, and 
in doing this you will leave me to misery inexpressible, for 
you are not to think, that I am either satisfied with myself or 
my prospects, though the latter are entirely my own seeking. 

"God bless you, may health and prosperity be yours, and 
happiness too, as I doubt not but it will, if you suffer your 
resentments to be subdued by the aid of true and reasonable 
reflections. Do not let that false idea of my triumphing 
induce you to acts of vengeance I implore you, Draper, for 
indeed that can never be, nor am I capable of bearing you 
the least ill-will; or treating your name or memory with 
irreverence, now that I have released myself from your 
dominion. Suffer me but to be unmolested, and I will en- 
gage to steer through life with some degree of approbation, 
if not respect. Adieu! again Mr. Draper, and be assured I 
have told you nothing but the truth, however it may clash 
with yours and the general opinion."* 

Mrs. Draper's elopement startled all civil and military 
India, for no woman was more widely known in the East. 
She became by this act the beautiful heroine of romance 
rescued by her lover from the tyranny of an ill-sorted or 
hateful marriage; she became another Guenevere or Iseult, 
we should say nowadays. In her flight she sought refuge 
with her rich uncle, Tom Whitehill, at Masulipatam — his 
"seat of empire", whence he superintended the fiscal admin- 
istration of five northern provinces ceded to the East India 
Company at the close of the war with Hyder Ali. "His 

* Mrs. Draper 's three farewell letters were published in the Times 
of India, February 24, 1894; and in the overland weekly issue of March 
3, 1894. 



504 LAUEENCE STEENE 

House, his Purse, Servants, Credit" were all placed at his 
niece's devotion. While under the protection of her power- 
ful uncle, Mrs. Draper could safely view from a distance the 
fury of a husband who saw himself outwitted on all sides. 
From the mayor's court at Bombay writs were obtained for 
the arrest of Sir John Clark, but the process-server was 
never able to find him.* And when the enraged husband 
threatened an action for divorce, Mrs. Draper, with the aid 
of her uncle, collected against him evidence to be placed in 
the hands of his superior officers so damaging to his private 
character that his better judgment called a halt to the con- 
templated proceedings. He was made to see that he could 
not proceed further against his wife without endangering all 
hope of remunerative service for the future. 

On going to her uncle's, it had been Mrs. Draper's inten- 
tion to remain with him for the rest of her life should he 
wish it, for her prospects of ever seeing England again were 
then very remote. In the autumn of 1773, she accompanied 
him to Rajahmundry, some eighty miles distant, where he 
pitched his tents for the winter and began negotiations with 
the zemindars, or petty princes of his provinces, over the land 
taxes of the next three years. The novelty of life in tents, 
joined with renewed health, put Mrs. Draper into spirits for 
a time; but she soon found Rajahmundry as uncongenial to 
her taste as was any other part of India. This restlessness 
crept into a confidential letter to her cousin Tom of Hod- 
dington, dated January 20, 1774, written to inform him of 
her present situation. Her uncle, she told Tom, was an 
"extraordinary character", upright in all his dealings with 
the native princes, and generous to a degree she had never 
before witnessed in any man; and yet, though possessing all 
these good qualities, he was so passionate and jealous in his 
affections that he could not brook any preference for others. 
Some sign of preference, though sentimental, Mrs. Draper 
showed in an unguarded moment for her uncle's devoted 
assistant in the administration, "premier" she called him, a 
young man near her own age, named Sullivan, who knew how 
to address "the heart and judgement without misleading 
* Bombay Quarterly Review, 196 (1857), as cited by Douglas, I, 432. 



MRS. DRAPER 505 

either ' '. After that unguarded moment, life ran less smoothly 
at Kajamundry, though there is no indication of open breach 
between uncle and niece. 

The letter to her cousin clearly foreshadowed Mrs. 
Draper's return to England towards the close of 1774. 
Henceforth her life was to be passed with her daughter 
among relatives and friends at home. While in London she 
occupied lodgings at "Mr. Woodhill's, Number 3 Queen 
Anne Street West, Cavendish Square",* within comfortable 
reach of the Jameses and the Nunehams, among whom she 
could hardly have failed to meet Mrs. Medalle, unless pre- 
cautions were taken against it. Eclat was given to her re- 
entrance into the old circles by the publication, early in 
February, 1775, of ten letters which she had received from 
Sterne at the height of his infatuation. Some mystery sur- 
rounds the appearance of the little volume bearing the title 
of Letters from Yorick to Eliza, printed for G. Kearsley and 
T. Evans. It was ushered in with a dedication to Lord 
Apsley, then Lord High Chancellor, whose father, the old 
Lord Bathurst, once introduced himself to Sterne at the 
Princess of Wales 's court and took him home to dine with him. 
A preface by the publisher authenticated the letters, saying 
that they had been faithfully copied with Mrs. Draper's per- 
mission by a gentleman at Bombay. An editor told the public 
who Eliza was, and commented upon ' ' the tender friendship ' ' 
between her and Sterne. Though the letters may have been 
procured in this way, it is more likely that Mrs. Draper 
directly authorised the publication after her return to Lon- 
don, and that she herself furnished copies of the originals and 
the facts for her biographical sketch. What the preface said 
of her, so far as it went, was accurate ; and except in capitals 
and punctuation, the letters seem to have been in no way 
tampered with; at any rate a comparison of the printed text 
with the copy of the first letter, still extant in Mrs. Draper's 
own hand, reveals no differences beyond these minor details. 
Whatever may be one's opinion as to the propriety of the 
publication during Mrs. Draper's lifetime, it was an honest 
book; and Mrs. Draper is to be further commended for not 
* Wilkes, List of Addresses. 



506 LAUEENCE STEENE 

including in the volume the later letters from Sterne reflect- 
ing upon the greed and violent temper of his wife, since dead. 

As the Eliza of this remarkable series of letters, Mrs. 
Draper received many attentions from Sterne's old friends, 
who were curious to see the woman to whom Yorick sent his 
sermons and Tristram Shandy, to whom he indited love 
epistles on going out to breakfast, on returning from Lord 
Bathurst's, or while waiting in Soho for Mr. James to dress. 
They wanted to see, too, her replies from which Sterne quoted 
a moral observation or two, expressing the opinion that her 
part of the correspondence should be published. ''When I 
am in want of ready cash", he said, "and ill health will not 
permit my genius to exert itself, I shall print your letters, as 
finished essays, 'by an unfortunate Indian lady'. The style 
is new; and would almost be a sufficient recommendation for 

their selling well, without merit but their sense, natural 

ease, and spirit, is not to be equalled, I believe, in this section 
of the globe; nor, I will answer for it, by any of your coun- 
trywomen in yours." On the strength of this warm recom- 
mendation of Mrs. Draper's epistolary style, her publisher 
tried to flatter her into print as another Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu; but "her modesty was invincible to all the pub- 
lisher's endeavours". "Altho' Mr. Sterne was partial to 
every thing of her's", she invariably replied, good sense 
triumphing over vanity, "she could not hope that the world 
would be so too. ' ' Some letters had better be published post- 
humously ; and to this class belonged Mrs. Draper 's. In lieu 
of what she refused to give out to the public, the literary 
forger, as might be expected, offered his wares. In April 
appeared Letters from Eliza to Yorick, purporting to be cor- 
rect copies of Mrs. Draper's letters to Sterne received "from 
a lady, not more dignified by her rank in life, than elevated 
by her understanding". The slight volume was entirely the 
work of some unknown hack-writer. 

Several well-known men were at once eager to win Mrs. 
Draper's friendship. Wilkes, after introducing her to his 
daughter, set out on Sterne's path to closer relations by send- 
ing her a present of books, accompanied by praise of her wit 
and conversation. In return, Mrs. Draper thanked him for 



MRS. DRAPER 507 

the volumes, but deprecated the politician's flattery, the 
intent of which she could not have failed to understand. 
William Combe, the subsequent author of Dr. Syntax, was 
also ambitious of standing in her favour, and long after- 
wards boasted that she was more partial to him than she had 
ever been to Sterne. But the nearest successor to Sterne was 
the Abbe Raynal, who, since their meeting at Bombay, had 
been in correspondence with Mrs. Draper and now associated 
with her in England. Like Sterne, he extolled her beauty, 
her candour, and sensibility, and imagined her the inspirer 
of all his work. Losing self-control completely, the Abbe 
proposed that she leave her family and friends and take up 
her residence with him in France. "What joy did I not 
expect", he wrote, "from seeing her sought after by men of 
genius, and beloved by women of the most refined tastes." 
Mrs. Draper valued the distinguished friendship ; but if she 
ever had any thought of quitting England for Paris, she was 
prevented by illness and death. 

After 1775, Mrs. Draper sinks from view. It is probable 
that she lived in dignified retirement with her daughter 
among relatives, despite the attempts to allure her into ques- 
tionable friendships. She was surely a welcome visitor at 
Hoddington, the seat of her cousin Thomas Mathew Sclater, 
who had been her confidential correspondent since childhood. 
And by some turn in her fortunes, over which one can only 
idly speculate, she seems to have been taken under the pro- 
tection of Sir William Draper, kinsman and perhaps brother 
to her husband. This old warrior, who had fought with his 
regiment by the side of Clive in India and led a successful 
expedition against the Philippines, was then settled on the 
Clifton Downs near Bristol. At his seat, named Manilla 
Hall, after the city which he had captured, Mrs. Draper may 
have passed her last years. Such at least is the conjecture 
of local history.* 

In any case, Mrs. Draper's residence at Clifton was brief. 
The young woman whose oval face and brilliant eyes had 
startled two ecclesiastics out of propriety, died on August 3, 
1778, in the thirty-fifth year of her age. She was buried in 

* George Pryce, A Popular History of Bristol, 119 (Bristol, 1861). 



508 LAURENCE STERNE 

the cathedral at Bristol, where a diamond in the north aisle 
of the choir marks her grave. Near-by in the north transept 
was erected, two years after her death, a mural monument 
by Bacon, the popular sculptor. The addition of a nave to 
the cathedral a century later made it necessary to take down 
all the monuments in the transepts. Mrs. Draper's was then 
removed to the beautiful cloisters. From a plain base rises 
a pointed arch of Sienna marble, under which stands, on each 
side of a pedestal supporting an urn, two draped female 
figures of white marble in alto relievo; of which the one, 
holding a torch in her right hand, is looking away and up- 
ward, while the eyes of the other are cast down towards a 
basket in her left hand containing a pelican feeding her 
young. Across and over the urn, above and between the two 
figures, lies an exquisitely carved wreath. An inscription, 
interpreting the allegory, says that in Mrs. Draper were 
united "Genius and Benevolence".* 

The three men who had professed admiration for Mrs. 
Draper took notice of her death, each in his own characteristic 
way. Wilkes bluntly wrote the word dead after her name 
in his address-book, else he might forget it. Combe, the liter- 
ary hack, traded upon her name by bringing out the next 
year two volumes of Letters Supposed to have been Written 
by Yorich and Eliza. The fictitious correspondence, cleverly 
enough framed, began with Mrs. Draper's return to India 
in 1767, and closed with a farewell letter from Sterne just 
as death was impending. Kaynal opened his History of the 
Indies, which was then passing to a second edition, and 
inserted a mad eulogy upon Eliza, from which I have quoted 
the soberer passages. "Territory of Anjengo", he exclaimed, 
addressing the land of her birth, "in thyself thou art noth- 
ing! But thou hast given birth to Eliza. A day will come 
when the emporiums founded by Europeans upon Asiatic 
shores will exist no more. * * * The grass will cover them, 
or the Indian, avenged at last, will build upon their ruins. 
But if my works be destined to endure, the name of Anjengo 
will dwell in the memories of men. Those who read me, those 

* J. Britton, History of the Cathedral Church of Bristol, 63 (London, 
1830) ; Pryce, A Popular History of Bristol, as above. 



MRS. DRAPER 509 

whom the winds shall drive to these shores, will say, ' There 
was the birth place of Eliza Draper.' " To the influence of 
the happy climate of Anjengo were attributed the personal 
charms of Mrs. Draper, which even the gloomy skies of Eng- 
land could not obscure. "A statuary", said the Abbe, "who 
would have wished to represent Voluptuousness, would have 
taken her for his model; and she would equally have served 
for him who might have had a figure of Modesty to portray. 
* * * In every thing that Eliza did, an irresistible charm 
was diffused around her. Desire, but of a timid and bashful 
cast, followed her steps in silence. Only a man of honour 
would have dared to love her, but he would not have dared 
to avow his passion. * * * In her last moments, Eliza's 
thoughts were fixed upon her friend; and I cannot write a 
line without having before me the memorial she has left me. 
Oh ! that she could also have endowed my pen with her graces 
and her virtue ! "* If these concluding sentences may be read 
literally, Raynal received a letter from Mrs. Draper just 
before her death. Not long after this he visited Bristol with 
Burke. It is just a surmise, if nothing more, that he placed 
in the cathedral the monument to Mrs. Draper's memory. 

Anjengo was again apostrophised by James Forbes in his 
Oriental Memoirs; and to the various places where Mrs. 
Draper lived while in India, travellers long made pilgrim- 
ages. Colonel James Welsh of the Madras infantry visited 
the house at Anjengo where she was supposed to be born, and 
carried away from a broken window pieces of oyster-shell 
and mother-of-pearl as mementos. He took pains to write 
also in his Reminisce7ices that the house she lived in at 
Tellicherry was still standing in 1812. A tree on the estate 
of her uncle at Masulipatam was called, it is said, Eliza's tree, 
in memory of her sojourn there after the flight from her 
husband. But a more interesting as well as more accessible 
shrine was the scene of her elopement overlooking the har- 
bour of Bombay. Sketches of Belvidere House were brought 
to England by J. B. Fraser, the traveller and explorer; and 
from them Robert Burford painted a panorama for public 
exhibition in London. Those who were unable to make the 
* For the complete eulogy, see the Eistoire PMlosopMque, II, 85-89. 



510 LAUBENCE STERNE 

voyage to India might thus imagine the window from which 
Mrs. Draper descended to the ship of Sir John Clark, and 
hear the story that many a person had seen her ghost o 'nights 
flitting about the corridors and verandahs of Belvidere in 
hoop and farthingale.* 

At the same time Gothic fancy built up a pretty legend 
round the prebendal house which Sterne sometimes occupied 
at York. The humourist wrote, they used to say, Tristram 
Shandy in the parlour below, and slept above in a large "old 
fashioned room, with furniture coeval with its form, heavy 
and dark and calculated to excite every association favourable 
to the abode of spirits dark as Erebus". For a full quarter- 
century after his death, Sterne's ghost had the habit of 
revisiting the old bedroom every night just as the bell in the 
great minster tolled twelve, and of tapping thrice the fore- 
head of any one who might be sleeping there. The actor 
Charles Mathews, who took the lodgings while playing at 
York, because they were cheap, found Sterne's visitations in 
no wise troublesome, and at length laid the perturbed spirit, t 

* Douglas, Bombay and Western India, I, 177, 403, 418. A vignette 
of the view of Belvidere was made for the Mirror of Literature, Amuse- 
ment, and Instruction, July 9, 1831. 

t Memoirs of Mathews, I, 247-55. 



CONCLUSION 

More than a century has rolled by since Sterne's ghost 
last walked his chambers in Stonegate ; but even yet one may 
feel the spell which the charming Yorick once cast over his 
contemporaries, who were loth to let him die ; who, long after 
he was dead and gone, imitated him in their books and cor- 
respondence, who sometimes forged his name to letters and 
whimsical impromptus such as they imagined he might have 
written, and kept on relating anecdotes of him, as if he were 
still living. Few or none who knew Sterne well, from his valet 
to his archbishop and the men of fashion who crowded round 
him in his lodgings or at St. James 's, and gave him the place 
of honour at their tables, ever broke friendship with him. 
Johnson, it is true, refused his company and thundered against 
"that man Sterne", but Johnson had really no acquaintance 
with him or with his books. If Warburton in a passion called 
Sterne "a scoundrel", it was after Sterne had told the Bishop 
of Gloucester that he could not accept him as guide and pat- 
tern in literature and conduct, without suppressing such 
talents as God had endowed him with. On the other hand, 
Lord Bathurst took Sterne under his protection as the wit 
that most reminded him of the glorious age of Queen Anne. 
Lord Spencer invited him to his country-seat, filled his purse 
with guineas, and was ever pressing him to delay his journey 
into Yorkshire. A box was always reserved for him and his 
company at both the theatres. Garrick took him home, dined 
him, and introduced him to "numbers of great people"; 
while Mrs. Garrick, delighted with the new guest, told him to 
regard their house as his own, to come and go whenever he 
pleased. Suard, though he associated with Sterne for only a 
few months, carried the image of him down to death. Whenever 
in after years Yorick 's name was mentioned, Suard 's eyes 
brightened, and he began to relate anecdotes about the 

511 



512 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Chevalier Sterne as he appeared in the salons, imitating, as 
he did so, his voice, manners, and gestures. 

Lessing's famous remark that he stood ready to shorten 
his own life could he thereby prolong Yorick's, would seem 
to be not quite sincere, had it not been several times repeated 
by the dramatist ; for the two men never met. But Sterne 's 
contemporaries made no distinction between Mr. Tristram 
Shandy and the book bearing his name. "Know the one", 
they used to say, "and you know the other." It has been 
reserved mostly for professional critics of later times to take 
Sterne to task for his slovenly style, for slang and solecisms, 
and for a loose syntax which drifts into the chaos of stars 
and dashes. Such criticism never occurred to those who 
knew him or could imagine him. Whether speaking or writ- 
ing, Sterne might be heedless of conventional syntax; but he 
was always perfectly clear. His dashes and stars were not 
mere tricks to puzzle the reader; they stood for real pauses 
and suppressions in a narrative which aimed to reproduce 
the illusion of his natural speech, with all its easy flow, 
warmth, and colour. To read Sterne was for those in the 
secret like listening to him. Lessing, who was able to divine 
the author from his books, paid him as fine a compliment as 
was ever paid to genius. 

Sterne's personality, like a great actor's, loses perforce its 
brilliancy in the pale reflection of a biography, wherein traits 
of manner and character are obscured by numberless facts, 
dates, and minor details necessary to a true relation of the 
humourist's career, but most difficult to carry in the memory 
and thereafter combine into a living portrait. No biographer, 
though the spell may be upon him, can hope to make it quite 
clear why Sterne captivated the world that came within his 
influence. His wit, humour, and pathos, which exactly hit 
the temper of his age, seem a little antiquated now as we 
derive these qualities second-hand from the books which he 
left behind him, and from the numerous anecdotes which 
were related after him, all rewrought for literary effect. 
Indeed, only a few of his letters retain their original fresh- 
ness, for in most cases their phrases have been all smoothed 
out by editors and biographers. We may look upon the 



CONCLUSION 513 

wonderful portraits that were painted of him by Reynolds 
and Gainsborough, and observe his dress, figure, features, and 
bright, eager eyes; but we must add from our imagination 
the smile and the voice of the king's jester. Moreover, man- 
ners and morals have so completely changed since Sterne's 
day, that one is in danger of misjudging him. No ecclesiastic 
could now live the life that was lived by Sterne. He and 
his compeers would be promptly unfrocked. The scenes 
through which Sterne passed, the men and women with whom 
he as'sociated, and the jests over which they laughed, have 
long since become impossible in smart society. Thackeray, 
who knew more of other men surrounding the Georges than 
he knew specifically of Sterne, made his confession when he 
said, after reading the letters of Selwyn and Walpole: "I 
am scared as I look round at this society — at this King, at 
these courtiers, at these politicians, at these bishops — at this 
flaunting vice and levity; * * * wits and prodigals; some 
persevering in their bad ways : some repentant, but relapsing ; 
beautiful ladies, parasites, humble chaplains, led captains." 
In more complaisant mood Thackeray nevertheless felt the 
fascination of it all. "I should like to have seen", he then 
confessed, ''the Folly. It was a splendid, embroidered, be- 
ruffled, snuff-boxed, red-heeled, impertinent Folly, and knew 
how to make itself respected." In this old world of the 
Georges, where the cardinal virtues were all forgotten, Sterne 
reigned as the supreme jester. ■ 

When Sterne first came to London in triumph, he was far 
from being the awkward country parson, lean, lank, and pale, 
that later caricature has represented him. He was a man 
hardly beyond the prime of life, of slight figure, near six feet 
in height, of rather prominent nose, with cheeks and lips 
still retaining traces of youthful colour and fullness, — and 
eyes soft and gentle as a woman's when they were in repose, 
but dark and brilliant when his spirit was stirred by con- 
versation and repartee. In bearing he was from the first 
supple and courteous to an extraordinary degree. His oddi- 
ties, which friends watched and commented upon, but "never 
described, seem to have consisted in a drollery of face and 
voice when he paid a compliment or related a jest,- combined, 



514 LAUEENCE STERNE 

if under the excitement of burgundy and good fellowship, 
with droll movements of head and arms extending to the 
whole body, not at all ungraceful, one may be sure, but odd 
and peculiar, like Corporal Trim's. Then it was that his 
wonderful eyes took on their wild gleam. 

This is all as it should be, for Sterne was a gentleman who 
had always chosen his companions among gentlemen. He 
belonged to an old and honourable family, whose men, some- 
times possessing solid attainments, were commonly hasty of 
temper; whose women were alert and vivacious. His father, 
"a little smart man", inheriting the characteristics of the 
Sternes and Rawdons, was withal "of a kindly, sweet dis- 
position, void of all design". Out of pity for the sad state 
of a woman beneath him in rank, the poor ensign married 
her, said the son, quarrelled with a fellow officer over a goose, 
and was straightway run through the body ; but survived after 
a fashion, and followed his flag to the West Indies and to death 
of a fever. In thus describing his father, Laurence described 
his own temperament. Like his father, he showed himself 
lacking in that prudence and good sense necessary for getting 
on with grave people. He quarrelled with the one man who 
could make or unmake him at will. If not literally run 
through the body like his father before him, he received his 
quietus for the present. But time has its revenges. Sterne 
wrote his book; and within three months Mr. Tristram 
Shandy was as widely known throughout England as the 
Prime Minister who accepted the dedication. Thenceforth 
Sterne lived in the glare of the world. Blinded at first by 
the excess of light, he despatched letters down to York every 
day, saying that no man had ever been so honoured by the 
great. No less than ten noblemen called at his lodgings on a 
single morning. Garrick came; Hogarth came; Reynolds 
came. The bishops all sent in their compliments; Rocking- 
ham took him to Court ; and Yorick was soon dining with the 
ladies of her Majesty's bedchamber. The jests and anecdotes 
with which he everywhere set tables on a roar were passed 
on to the coffee-houses, and thence through newsmongers to 
the world at large. And wherever the tall man in black went 
— and no doors were closed against him, — he was as much at 



CONCLUSION 515 

home as when in his country parish, driving his cattle afield 
or running down a goose for his friend Mr. Blake of York. 

Such was Sterne's career in its abridgment. I have often 
thought, in following it, of a remark that George Eliot once 
made of Rousseau and her other wayward literary passions. 
"I wish you thoroughly to understand", she declared to a 
friend, ' ' that the writers who have most profoundly influenced 
me * * * are not in the least oracles to me. It is just pos- 
sible that I may not embrace one of their opinions, — that 
I may wish my life to be shaped quite differently from 
theirs." Still she read on and on in Rousseau and the rest, 
under the irresistible sway of emotions and perceptions novel 
to all her previous experiences. So it is with Sterne. It 
seemed to his contemporaries, as it seems to us, that no man 
ever possessed so keen a zest for living. You see this in his 
early life, in his preaching, in his reading, in his pastimes, 
and even in his farming. Write to me, he entreated a cor- 
respondent after returning home from his first campaign in 
town, and your letter "will find me either pruning, or dig- 
ging, or trenching, or weeding, or hacking up old roots, or 
wheeling away rubbish". You see this zest in its startling 
fullness after the Yorkshire parson had begun his long and 
steady tramp through the rounds of pleasure in London, 
Bath, Paris, and Italy. When his course was finished, he 
had exhausted all pleasurable sensations, those of the peasant 
as well as those of the great world. If there were times 
when melancholy and despondency crept over him, he wisely 
kept within his lodgings or at Shandy Hall away from 
friends, and fought out single-handed the battle with evil 
spirits. 

In the background of Sterne's character thus lay, as 
Bagehot once pointed out, a calm pagan philosophy. Al- 
though he well knew that he was sacrificing his life to plea- 
sure, he never halted or swerved from the path on which he 
had set out ; for he felt that he was but fulfilling his destiny. 
To the physicians who told him that he could not continue in 
his course another month, he replied that he had heard the 
same story for thirteen years. When the dreadful hemor- 
rhages, so numerous that we cannot count them, fell upon 



516 LAUEENCE STEENE 

him, he accepted them without murmur, as the darkness which 
nature interposes between periods of light. And when he 
saw the approach of the "all-composing" night from which 
he knew no dawn would appear, he merely remarked that he 
should like "another seven or eight months, * * * but be 
that as it pleases God". It was doubtless this cheerful readi- 
ness of Sterne to take all that nature gives, down to the last 
struggle, that Goethe had in mind when he said that Sterne 
was the finest type of wit whose presence had ever been felt 
in literature. 

A pagan in so far as he had any philosophy, Sterne was 
endowed with none of the grave virtues or contemptible vices 
described by moralists. If you run through the list of them 
as laid down by Aristotle or by Dante, you may stop a moment 
upon this or that virtue or upon this or that vice, but you 
quickly pass on to the end, with the perception that none 
pertains greatly to this man's character. Indeed, for certain 
of the practical virtues, Sterne expressed the most profound 
contempt, classing them with the deadliest of the seven deadly 
sins. Caution and Discretion, for example— the virtues of 
Samuel Kichardson and his heroines— were to Sterne only the 
evil propensities of human nature, inasmuch as they are 
always intruding upon a man's conduct to prevent the free 
and spontaneous expression of his real selfhood. "They 
encompass", he often said in varying phrase, "the heart with 
adamant." Such virtues and such vices as Sterne possessed 
are rather comprehended in the ideal of old English knight- 
hood as modified by the spirit of the Renaissance. The 
virtues of the gentleman in those times were, according to 
Chaucer, — 

"Truth and honour, freedom (generosity) and courtesy." 
And all his vices, lying under the pretty concealment of the 
most perfect manners, were of the flesh only. 

Sterne could always be relied upon to perform with 
fidelity all ecclesiastical offices with which he was charged 
by his archbishop or by his dean and chapter. When absent 
from Sutton or Coxwold, he was careful to place over them 
capable curates, and to see to it that his surrogates made 
annual visitations to those other parishes lying within the 



CONCLUSION 517 

jurisdiction of his commissaryships. In all his engagements 
and appointments, he strove to be punctual to the hour, 
whether they were for business or for relaxation ; and if ill- 
ness or other circumstance intervened to keep him at home, 
he sent a note of apology so courteous in its phrasing that the 
receiver placed it aside among his treasures. So it was in the 
obscure days at Sutton and so it was after Sterne had entered 
the world of fashion. It must have been quite worth while 
for Lord Spencer to have presented him with a silver standish 
merely for the sake of the acknowledgment wherein Sterne 
blessed him in the name of himself, wife, and daughter, say- 
ing that "when the Fates, or Follies of the Shandean family 
have melted down every ounce of silver belonging to it, * * * 
this shall go last to the Mint".* If Sterne made any remark 
at dinner in the license of his wit which he thought might 
hurt the feelings of the host or of a sensitive guest, he ap- 
peared the next morning with a graceful apology, or sent a 
messenger with a note laying it all to the burgundy and ask- 
ing that no offence be taken where none was intended. Sterne 
was kindly and generous to all who depended upon him. His 
contracts with the poor and obscure men whom he left in 
charge of his parishes show a consideration uncommon in 
those days, when pluralists were accustomed to grind and 
otherwise misuse their curates. Sometimes he gave a curate 
the whole value of a living. The persisting opinion that he 
long neglected his mother, we now know, is quite untrue. 
Furthermore, Sterne was always most attentive to the welfare 
of his wife and daughter, for whose health and ease he pro- 
vided to the full extent of his purse. Six months before his 
death, he set in order his letters and stray papers, that they 
might be published for their benefit; and his last thoughts, 
as he lay dying, were upon Lydia. 

Strangely enough, Sterne has been depicted as a hypo- 
crite, as a Joseph Surface, thoroughly corrupt in his heart, 

* Sterne was especially pleased with the inscription which the 
standish bore: — 

"Laurentio Sterne A.M. 
Joannes Comes Spencer 
Musas, Charitasque omnes 
propitias precatur" Morgan Manuscripts 



518 LAUEENCE STEBNE 

but posing as a moralist or a man of fine sentiments. No 
portrait could be further from the truth, for Sterne never 
pretended to be other than he was. Such qualities as nature 
gave him — whether they be called virtues or whether they be 
called vices — he wore upon his sleeve. If he felt no zeal for 
a cause, he never professed to have any. For a brief period 
he joined with his Church in denunciation of the Stuart Pre- 
tender and the Jesuits who were seeking restoration in Eng- 
land, but his passions soon cooled; he became disgusted with 
the part which he was playing, and resolved "that if ever 
the army of martyrs was to be augmented or a new one raised 
— I would have no hand in it, one way or t'other". Rather 
than be suffocated, "I would almost subscribe", he added, 
"to anything which does not choke me on the first passage". 
In all this Sterne was perfectly sincere. Moreover, he be- 
lieved the gospel as he preached it. He accepted his Church 
and all that it taught without question, not because he. had 
meditated profoundly upon its doctrines, but because it was 
the Church of his ancestors in which he had grown up from 
childhood. To him the Bible was the most eloquent of books 
because it was inspired ; and for the same reason the men and 
women therein portrayed were types of men and women of all 
times. When he set up a defence of miracles, taking Heze- 
kiah for his theme, before the Parisian philosophers gathered 
at the English embassy, it was because he actually believed 
that the shadow went back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz, 
certainly not because he wished to appear odd and facetious 
Any other inference would be to misunderstand completely 
the Yorkshire parson. 

In contrast with intellects so highly cultivated as Hol- 
bach's or Diderot's, Sterne was ludicrously weak in the rea- 
soning faculty and in that poise of character which comes 
from it. Locke was the only philosopher whom he could 
understand; all others were charlatans who poured forth 
words without meaning. His sermons, always graceful and 
sometimes entertaining, display no logic, with the possible 
exception of the one which Voltaire praised for its subtile 
analysis of conscience. And even in that sermon, Sterne's 
discernments concern not so much the intellect as the feelings 



CONCLUSION 519 

which lead conscience astray. "Reason", Sterne once said, 
"is half of it sense", and he thereby described himself. For 
his was a most abnormal personality. Exceedingly sensitive 
to pleasure and to pain, he gave way to the emotions of the 
moment, receiving no guidance from reason, for he had none. 
Himself aware of this, he said variously, "I generally act 
from the first impulse" or "according as the fly stings". 
Had Sterne's heart been bad, he would have been a menace 
to society; but his heart was not bad. I can discern in him 
nothing mean or cowardly — Thackeray to the contrary not- 
withstanding. On the other hand, he was always courteous, 
generous, and unselfish. Men who came within his circle 
watched him, as we have watched him, amused rather than 
shocked, to see him, oblivious of all conventions, follow his 
momentary impulses into the wild follies and extravagances 
of high life. Only the grave shook their heads. To all others 
Sterne was a delightful absurdity. 

Sterne's want of self-control was nowhere more con- 
spicuous than in his relations with women. Feminine beauty 
simply overpowered him. First came Miss Lumley, whom he 
married because she was the first ; and then followed in his 
later days Miss Fourmantelle, "my witty widow Mrs. Fergu- 
son", Mrs. Vesey with her blue stockings, Lady Percy, and 
Mrs. Draper home from India without her husband, to men- 
tion a few names that have survived in these memoirs. The 
women who awakened his admiration, Sterne divided into 
three classes, discovering their types in Venus, Minerva, and 
Juno. None of the three goddesses, however, quite satisfied 
his ideal ; for Venus, lovely as she was, had no wit ; Minerva 
had wit, but she was inclined to be a prude ; and Juno, for all 
her beauty, was too imperial. Venus he liked to look at as 
she whipped up to his carriage in Hyde Park and invited 
him to her cabinet for a dish of tea. Minerva and Juno, 
whom he saw in Mrs. Garrick and Mrs. James, he adored 
with bent knee from a safe distance, whence incense might be 
cast upon their altars. But when Venus and Minerva 
appeared in one woman, at once beautiful, witty, and viva- 
cious, his poor heart utterly collapsed. 

About women of this last type Sterne liked to dawdle, 



520 LAUEENCE STEENE 

exchanging tender sentiments; he liked, no doubt, — as we 
read in the Sentimental Journey — to touch the tips of their 
fingers and to count their pulse beats, all for the pleasurable 
sensations which he felt running along his nerves. In return, 
these sentimental women were enraptured; sometimes they 
came north during the summer to meet him at York and to 
be chaperoned by him, as he called it, to Scarborough for a 
week or a fortnight. The infatuation, except perhaps in the 
case of Mrs. Draper, was never a deep passion ; it was only a 
transient emotional state, which quickly passed unless re- 
newed by another sight of the charming face and figure. 
' ' We are all born ' ', said Sterne as we have before quoted him, 
"with passions which ebb and flow (else they would play the 
devil with us) to new objects." The Anglican clergyman, 
remarked a Frenchman who observed his behaviour in Paris, 
was in love with the whole sex, and thereby preserved his 
purity. That may be quite true. Certainly it would be 
unjust to charge Sterne with gross immoralities, for there was 
nothing of the beast about the sublimated Yorick. His sins 
may have been only those sins of the imagination which fre- 
quently accompany a wasting disease; for we should not 
forget that Sterne had the phthisical temperament. Perhaps 
Coleridge correctly divined him when he said that Sterne 
resembled a child who just touches a hot teapot with trem- 
bling fingers because it has been forbidden him. And yet he 
lived in a society where the seventh commandment was most 
inconvenient and where no discredit fell upon a man if he 
broke it. 

Of course I am entering no defence in behalf of Sterne's 
conduct. I am merely explaining it from his volatile disposi- 
tion. Nor would it serve any purpose to censure him for his 
follies and indiscretions. True, one is amazed at the freedoms 
of the old society. And were it not for Sterne's humour, the 
man and his books would have become long since intolerable. 
But the everlasting humour of the man saves him ; it lifts him 
out of the world of moral conventions into a world of his own 
making. We must accept him as he was, else close the book. 
Everything about him was unique — his appearance, what he 
did, what he said, what he wrote. Acts for which you would 



CONCLUSION 521 

reproach yourself or your nearest friends, you pass over in his 
case, for in them lurks some overmastering absurdity. "I 
am a queer dog", he wrote in reply to an unknown cor- 
respondent who conjectured that he must be one when over 

his cups, "I am a queer dog, only you must not wait for 

my being so till supper, much less an hour after, for I 

am so before breakfast."* No one could ever predict what 
Sterne would do under given circumstances. When in com- 
pany, he sometimes sat the melancholy Jaques ; at other times, 
he flashed forth a wild jest; and if it took well, then came 
another and another still wilder. There is the same wildness 
in Tristram Shandy, which opens with a jest, runs into 
buffoonery, and closes with a cock-and-bull story. But 
Sterne's humour was often, as in the Sentimental Journey, 
quiet and elusive. If a fly buzzed about his nose, he must 
catch it and safely carry it in his hand to the window and let 
it go free. If he saw a donkey munching an artichoke, he 
must give him a macaroon, just to watch the changes in the 
animal's countenance as he drops a bitter morsel for a sweet 
one. Governed by his whims in small and great things, Sterne 
was thoroughly unstable in his character. 

As we view him in his books and in his life, Sterne had 
brief serious moods, but he quickly passed out of them into 
his humour. When he advised a brother of the cloth "to tell 
a lie to save a lie ' ', he did not exactly mean it so, but he could 
not resist the humour of the absurd injunction. He must 
have been sorely troubled over his wife's insanity, but he 
could not announce her illness without awakening a smile in 
the hearer as he said : ' ' Madame fancies herself the Queen of 
Bohemia and I am indulging her in the notion. Every day 
I drive her through my stubble field, with bladders fastened 
to the wheels of her chaise to make a noise, and then I tell 
her this is the way they course in Bohemia." 

Nothing, however sacred, was immune against Sterne's 
wit. He was, if one wishes to put it that way, indecent and 
profane. And yet indecency or profanity never appears in 
his letters and books by itself or for its own sake. His 
loosest jests not only have their humorous point, but they 

* Morgan Manuscripts. \ 



522 LAUEENCE STEENE 

often cut rather deeply into human nature. He had, as we 
have said, very little of the animal in him; and perhaps for 
this very reason, in the opinion of Mr. Theodore Watts- 
Dunton, he was amused by certain physical instincts and 
natural functions of the body when contrasted with the higher 
nature to which all lay claim. His imagination was ever 
playing with these inconsistences, and down they went without 
premeditation, as might be easily illustrated from the con- 
versations at Shandy Hall. Queer analogies of all sorts were 
ever running in Sterne's head. If it were a hot day, he 
thought of Nebuchadnezzar's oven. If he took a text from 
Solomon, he could not help questioning its truth on rising 
into the pulpit, for the antithesis between the wise man of the 
Hebrews and a York prebendary was too good to lose. He 
has been charged with parodies of St. Paul's greetings to the 
Corinthians. Of this he was, indeed, guilty on several occa- 
sions, but only when writing to a company of wits who spent 
their leisure in reading Rabelais and literature of that kind. 
The contrast between the little church that St. Paul founded 
at Corinth and a group of jesters that met under the roof of 
Hall-Stevenson could not be resisted. It must be sent to the 
Demoniacs for their amusement. 

Sterne is, I dare say, the most complete example in mod- 
ern literature of a man whose other faculties are overpowered 
by a sense of humour. He feels, he imagines, and he at once 
perceives the incongruities of things as ordered by man or 
by nature ; but he does not think, nor has he any appreciation 
of moral values. What to others seems serious or sacred is to 
him only an occasion for a sally of wit. In a measure all 
great humourists since Aristophanes and Lucian have resem- 
bled him, for unrestrained utterance is essential to humour. 
The humourist is a free lance recognising no barriers to his 

wit. All that his race most prizes its religion, its social 

ideals, its traditions, its history, and its heroes — is fair game 
for him, just as much as the most trivial act of everyday 
life. He is, as Yorick named himself, the king's jester, 
privileged to break in at all times upon the feast with his odd 
ridicule. But most humourists have had their moods of high 
seriousness, when they have turned from the gay to the grave 



CONCLUSION 523 

aspects of things. In Bon Quixote there is so much tragedy 
behind the farce that Charles Kingsley thought it the saddest 
book ever written. Shakespeare passed from Falstaff and 
the blackguards that supped at the Boar's Head to Hamlet, 
Lear, and Othello. Fielding, in the midst of his comedy, had a 
way of letting one into a deeper self, as in that great passage 
where he cuts short an exaggerated description of Sophia's 
charms with the remark — "but most of all she resembled one 
whose image can never depart from my breast," — in allusion 
to his wife just dead. To all these men there was something 
besides the humourist. There were in reserve for them great 
moral and intellectual forces. However far they may have 
been carried by their humour, there was at some point a quick 
recovery of the normal selfhood. Sterne had no such reserve 
powers, for he was compounded of sensations only. In his 
life and in his books, he added extravagance to extravagance, 
running the course to the end, for there was no force to check 
and turn him backward. He was a humourist pure and sim- 
ple, and nothing else. The modern world has not seen his 
like. The ancients — though I do not pretend to speak with 
authority — may have had such a humourist in Lucian. But 
there is a difference in the quality of their humour. Lucian 
was sharp and acidulous. Sterne rarely, perhaps nowhere 
except in the sketch of Dr. Slop, reached the border where 
humour passes into satire; for satire means a degree of 
seriousness unknown to him. With Swift, Sterne said vivo la 
bagatelle; but he added — what Swift could never say — vive 
la joie, declaring the joy of life to be "the first of human 
possessions. ' ' 



APPENDIX 

MANUSCRIPTS 

No account of the Sterne manuscripts now existing can lay- 
claim to completeness, for they lie scattered in many collec- 
tions. The following lists comprise mostly such as have been 
employed in the preparation of this book, though it has 
seemed best to admit reference to certain manuscripts which 
can not be exactly placed at the present time, and are thus 
unknown to the writer from personal inspection : 

Sentimental Journej^. (British Museum, Egerton MSS 
1610.) The printer's copy, with autograph corrections, of the 
first vol. of the Sentimental Journey. 174 pages. Small 
quarto, measuring 6 by 8 inches. The manuscript is accom- 
panied by a letter giving its history. Sterne's alterations are 
numerous. 

Sermons. The manuscript of the sermon on the "Tem- 
poral Advantages of Religion ' ' formed a part of the collection 
of the late Frederick Locker-Lampson. It is now owned by 
W. K. Bixby, Esq., of St. Louis. It is inclosed in a wrapper 
addressed to Rev. Dr. Clarke and bearing the autograph of 
Henry Fauntleroy, the banker. The manuscript of the ser- 
mon on "Penances" was recently acquired by J. Pierpont 
Morgan, Esq. It has the following endorsement near the 
end: "Preached April 8th 1750. Present, Dr. Herring, Dr. 
Wanly, Mr. Berdmore." 

Tristram Shandy. A copy of book IV, chs. 1-17, with 
corrections in Sterne's own hand, was at Skelton Castle in 
1859. The copy was probably made by Lydia Sterne, who 
was at times her father's amanuensis (Notes and Queries, 
second series, VII, 15). The story of Le Fever in book VI, 
down to "As this letter came to hand" in the thirteenth chap- 
ter, was long preserved at Spencer House, St. James's Place, 

524 



APPENDIX 525 

London. Over the manuscript Lord Spencer wrote, "The 
Story of Le Fever, sent to me by Sterne before it was pub- 
lished" (Appendix to Second Report of the Historical Manu- 
scripts Commission, 20 (London, 1871). It was sold by the 
present Lord Spencer. 

The Journal to Eliza. (British Museum, Additional MSS, 
34527, ff. 1-40.) The first entry is dated Aprl. 13, [1767], 
and the last (a postscript) Nov. 1 [1767]. The Journal forms 
a part of the MSS bequeathed to the Museum by the late 
Thomas Washbourne Gibbs of Bath. The Gibbs MSS include 
also the draft of a letter from Sterne to Daniel Draper (sum- 
mer of 1767 ) ; two letters with their original covers to Mr. and 
Mrs. James, dated respectively Coxwould, May 10, 1767, and 
York, Dec. 28, 1767; a long letter to Mrs. James from Mrs. 
Draper, dated Bombay, Apr. 15, 1772 (ff. 47-70) ■ and two 
letters from Thackeray to T. W. Gibbs, relative to the Journal, 
dated May 31 and Sept. 12, [1852]. 

Miscellaneous Letters in the British Museum: 

Letter to Francis Blackburne, Archdeacon of Cleveland. 
Sutton, Nov. 3, 1750. Four pages, folio. Address on back. 
(Egerton MSS 2325, f. 1.) 

Dr. Jaques Sterne to Archdeacon Blackburne with refer- 
ence to Laurence. York, Dec. 6, 1750. Four pages, quarto. 
(Egerton MSS 2325, f. 3.) 

Letter to Dr. Jaques Sterne. [Sutton.] April 5, 1751. 
Eleven pages, folio. (Additional MSS 25479, f. 12.) 

This letter, which is not in Sterne's hand, is accompanied 
by the following note: "Copied by permission of Mr. Rob. 
Cole of Upper Norton Street from a copy carefully made by 
some person for Mr. Godfrey Bosvile formerly of Gunthwaite 
and bought by Mr. Cole with many other papers of the Bos- 
viles, July 25, 1851." 

Letter to Becket. Paris. [April?] 12, 1762. Three 
pages, quarto. (Egerton MSS 1662, f. 5.) 

Letter to Becket. Bagneres-de-Bigorre, July 15, 1763; 
with seal. Four pages, quarto, written on two; address on 
back. (Additional MSS 21508, f. 47.) 



526 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Letter to Panchaud and Foley, Bankers, at Paris. London, 
Feb. 27, 1787. Four pages, quarto, written on one page; ad- 
dress on back. (Additional MSS 33964, f. 381.) 

Letters in the Morgan Collection. A part of the Letter- 
Book in which Sterne was accustomed to copy his own letters 
as well as those from his friends, is owned by J. Pierpont 
Morgan, Esq. Fifty-nine pages of writing on 34 leaves, 
measuring 7%x6 1 / 4 inches. With a view to the publication 
of his correspondence after his death, Sterne states on the 
first page, for the information of his survivors, where other 
letters may be found. See p. 473 of this biography. Seven- 
teen letters and a fragment, of which five have been published 
in mutilated form. They comprise the following: 

Letter dated York, Jan. 1, 1760, to a friend on the inde- 
corums of Tristram Shandy. Published. 

Letter to Kichard Berenger, gentleman of horse to George 
III. [March, 1760.] Published. 

Letter written at York, apparently just after his return 
from France in June, 1764, to a lady in town. Unpublished. 

Letter to Mrs. F , of Bath, — probably Mrs. Ferguson. 

In this letter Sterne describes his personal appearance, saying 
that he is "near six feet high". Date uncertain. Un- 
published. 

Letter to Miss M. Macartney, — that is, Miss Mary Macart- 
ney, afterwards Lady Lyttelton, wife of William Henry 
Lyttelton, Governor of South Carolina. Undated, but belong- 
ing to the summer of 1760. Unpublished. 

Letter to "My dear Bramine", i.e., Mrs. Draper, dated 
June or July [1767]. Unpublished. 

Letter from Hall-Stevenson. Crazy Castle, July 13, 1766. 
Unpublished. 

Eeply to Hall-Stevenson. Coxwould, July 15, 1766. Un- 
published. 

Letter from Ignatius Sancho. July 21, 1766. Published. 

Reply to Sancho. Coxwould, July 27, 1766. Published. 

Letter from a Mr. Brown of Geneva to Hall-Stevenson, on 
Tristram Shandy and the kind of man its author must be, 
July 25, 1760. Unpublished. 



APPENDIX 527 

Sterne's humorous reply to Mr. Brown. York, Sept. 9, 
1760. Unpublished. 

A Letter signed "Jenny Shandy", claiming to be "poor 
Mr. Shandy's sister". Unpublished. 

Letter to Mrs. Elizabeth Vesey, London, June 20, [1764]. 
Published. 

Letter to Lord Spencer, thanking him for a silver standish. 
Coxwould, Oct. 1, 1765. Unpublished. 

Letter to Miss T ; i.e., Miss Tuting, who was going 

abroad. Coxwould, Aug. 27, 1764. Unpublished. 

Letter to a Friend in Paris. Bond Street, London, Jan. 6, 
1767. Unpublished. 

Fragment of a Letter. Twelve lines. Unpublished. 

Letters to the Rev. John Blake, master of the grammar 
school at York. Twelve or more letters written on foolscap 
(7%xl2% inches), and formerly belonging to Mr. A. H. 
Hudson of York. Eleven of these letters were published by 
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald in his Life of Sterne. The original of 
one not included by him is now in the library of Mr. W. K. 
Bixby of St. Louis. The manuscript of one is owned by 
Mr. A. H. Joline, New York City; and of another by Messrs. 
Charles Scribner's Sons. Still another was formerly in the 
collection of Mr. George T. Maxwell, New York City. 

Four letters from Sterne to Lord Fauconberg. In the 
library of Sir George Wombwell, Newburgh Priory, York- 
shire. Dated respectively Paris, April 10, 1762 ; Montpellier, 
Sept. 30, 1763; London, Friday [Jan. 9], 1767; and Bond 
Street [London], Jan. 16, 1767. 

Three Letters in the Alfred Morrison Collection, London. 
Two to Becket, dated respectively Toulouse, March 12, 1763, 
and Paris, March 20, 1764; and one to Panchaud, his banker 
at Paris, dated Florence, Dec. 18, 1765. 

Single Letters in Private Collections: 

Letter to Mr. Mills, merchant, Philpot Lane, London. 
Montpellier, Nov. 24, 1763. In the Huth Library, London. 
See Catalogue of the Huth Library, V, 1705 (London, 1880). 



528 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Letter to Garrick, requesting the loan of £20. [London, 
Jan., 1762.] In the library of Mr. A. H. Joline, New York 
City. 

Letter to Dr. Jemm of Paris, introducing Mr. Symonds, 
and giving details of his winter in Italy. Rome, Easter Sun- 
day, [1766]. Two pages, quarto 9%x7% inches. Contained 
in the Great Album of Frederick Locker-Lampson, now owned 
by Dodd, Mead and Co., New York City (1908). Dr. Jemm 
may be identified perhaps with Dr. Alexandre Auguste 
Jamme, of Toulouse, then a well-known physician and man 
of letters, whom Sterne had probably met at Toulouse. He 
resided partly at Paris. Mr. Symonds seems to be the John 
Symonds, Esq., who subscribed to Sterne's Sermons of this 
year ; not unlikely the John Symonds who succeeded Gray as 
Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. 

Letter to Mr. Hesselridge at Lord Maynard's, with refer- 
ence to the last volumes of Tristram Shandy and to the forth- 
coming sermons. York, July 5, [1765]. Two and one half 
pages, quarto 9%x7% inches. Owned by Henry Sotheran 
and Co., London (1906). See p. 349. 

Letter to Becket. Paris, Oct. 19, 1765. Two pages, 
quarto. Formerly owned by Robson and Co. London (1904). 

Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Draper (nee Sclater), mostly 
from India to members of her family in England. In Lord 
Basing 's collection at Hoddington House, Odiham, Hants. 
Foolscap or large quarto, — paper sometimes red outside and 
buff inside. These letters, arranged chronologically, though 
they do not appear so in the MSS, comprise the following : 

Elizabeth Sclater to her cousin, Miss Elizabeth Sclater. 
Bombay, March 13, 1758. An account of a first arrival at 
Bombay and of her father's house there. 

To her aunt, Mrs. Pickering. (Elizabeth, wife of Dr. 
Thomas Pickering, Vicar of St. Sepulchre's London.) Un- 
dated. [1762?] Death of her sister Mary. Hopes to return 
the next year with her children. 

To her cousin, Miss Elizabeth Sclater. Bombay, Sept. 26, 
1762. Her declining health. 



APPENDIX 529 

To her cousin, Miss Elizabeth Sclater. Undated, but writ- 
ten while on her visit to England. [1765 or 1766.] 

To her cousin, Thomas Mathew Sclater, Esq. Dated "Earl 
of Chatham", May 2, 1767. Account of her voyage from 
England as far as Santiago, Cape Verde Islands. Sterne 
is mentioned. 

To her cousin, T. M. Sclater. Dated Malabar Coast, "Earl 
of Chatham", Nov. 29, 1767. Further account of her voyage, 
and fresh impressions of India. 

To her aunt, Mrs. Pickering. ''Bombay — High Meadow," 
March 21, 1768. Living in the country with her sister Louisa. 

To her cousin, Miss Elizabeth Sclater. Bombay, Oct. 28, 

1768. Removal of Mr. Draper. 

To her cousin, T. M. Sclater. Tellicherry, Apr. 10, 1769. 
Mr. Draper reinstated in his old post. Her life at the settle- 
ment. Distress and chagrin over Mrs. Sterne's threats to 
publish her letters to Sterne. 

To her cousin, T. M. Sclater. Tellicherry, May, 1769. 
Interesting account of herself, of the marriage of her sister, 
and of life in India, where she was born. 

To her cousin, Miss Elizabeth Sclater. Tellicherry, Oct. 27, 

1769. Reigning as queen of the settlement. Death of her 
son and of an uncle. 

To her cousin, T. M. Sclater. Surat, April 5, 1771, her 
birthday. Details of her present life. 

To her aunt, Mrs. Pickering. Bombay, Feb. 6, 1772. 
Hopes to return to England within two years. 

To her cousin, T. M. Sclater. Bombay, March 4, 1772. 
Mr. Draper has been removed from office. Sketch of his 
character. 

To T. M. Sclater. Rajahmundry, Jan. 20, 1774. On her 
separation from Mr. Draper and on the protection of her 
uncle, Thomas Whitehill. 

Lord Basing 's MSS contain also a copy of Sterne's first 
letter to Mrs. Draper, which she sent to T. M. Sclater, Esq., 
just before leaving England in 1767 ; a letter from her sister 
Mary (Mrs. Rawson Hart Boddam) to her uncle, Dr. Picker- 
ing, dated Bombay, Nov. 18, 1760; and the fragment of a 
letter from Emma Springett to Mrs. Elizabeth Sclater, dated 
84 



530 LAURENCE STERNE 

Bombay, Jan. 7, 1794. The MSS are accompanied with notes 
and a pedigree of the Sclaters. 

A long letter from Mrs. Draper to some member of her 
family in England, perhaps her father, is in the British 
Museum (Additional MSS 33963). Tellicherry, April, 1769. 
Mrs. Draper is assisting her husband with his correspondence. 

Three letters which Mrs. Draper wrote on the evening of 
her elopement, Jan. 14, 1773, were published in the Times of 
India for Feb. 24, 1894, and in the overland weekly issue for 
March 3, 1894. The originals are in a private collection at 
Bombay. A letter from Mrs. Draper to John Wilkes, dated 
March 22, [1775?] is among the Wilkes MSS in the British 
Museum. See also the Gibbs Manuscripts as described above. 

STERNE'S PUBLISHED WORKS 

Except in so far as stray letters have escaped observation, 
the following lists comprise all of Sterne's works that have 
been published. The many forgeries which appeared in his 
name during and after his lifetime have been purposely 
excluded. 

The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath [sic] , con- 
sider 'd : A Charity-Sermon Preach 'd on Good-Friday, April 
17, 1747. In the Parish Church of St. Michael-le-Belfrey, 
before The Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, 
Sheriffs and Commoners of the City of York, at the Annual 
Collection for the Support of two Charity-Schools. By 
Laurence Sterne, M.A. Prebendary of York. York : Printed 
for J. Hildyard Bookseller in Stonegate: and Sold by Mess. 
Knapton, in St. Paul's Church- Yard; Mess. Longman and 
Shewell, and M. Cooper, in Pater-noster-Row, London. 
M.DCC.XLVII. [Price Six-Pence.] 

8vo. Printed by Caesar Ward. Dedicated to the Very Eeverend 
Richard Osbaldeston, D.D., Dean of York. 

The Abuses of Conscience: Set forth in a Sermon, 
Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's, York, at the 
Summer Assizes, before The Hon. Mr. Baron Clive, and the 
Hon. Mr. Baron Smythe, on Sunday, July 29, 1750. By 
Laurence Sterne, A.M. Prebendary of the said Church. 



APPENDIX 531 

Published at the Request of the High Sheriff and Grand Jury. 
York : Printed by Caesar Ward : f of John Hildyard, in Stone- 
gate, 1750. [Price Six-Pence.] 

8vo. Dedicated to Sir William Pennyman, Bart. High Sheriff of 
the County of York, and to the Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, whose 
names are all given. 

A Political Romance, Addressed To , Esq; of 

York. To which is subjoined a Key. York: Printed in the 
Year MDCCLIX. [Price One Shilling.] 

8vo. The title-page contains a quotation from Horace as given in 
this biography on p. 164. Title and Eomance, pp. 1-24. Postscript, 
pp. 25-30. The Key, pp. 31-47. Two letters signed by Sterne and 
dated at Sutton-on-the-Forest, Jan. 20, 1759, pp. 49-60. By a printer's 
error the signature to the second letter appears as Lawrence Sterne. 
The printer was doubtless Caesar Ward. 

Of this rare pamphlet, three copies only are known to exist: one in 
the Library of the Dean and Chapter, York; one in the Subscription 
Library, York; and one in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. 

Sterne's Eomance brought to a ludicrous close a hot controversy, in 
which three other pamphlets appeared. The first was by Dr.. Francis 
Topham of the Prerogative Court of York; the second was by Dr. John 
Fountayne, the Dean of York, with some aid from Sterne ; and the third 
was by Dr. Topham. Published anonymously, their titles ran: 

A Letter Address 'd to the Eeverend the Dean of York; in which is 
given a full Detail of some very extraordinary Behaviour of his, in 
relation to his Denial of a Promise made by him to Dr. Topham. York: 
Printed in the Year MDCCLVIII. [Price Six-Pence] 

An Answer to a Letter address 'd to the Dean of York, in the Name 
of Dr. Topham. York: sold by Thomas Atkinson, Bookseller in the 
Minster-Yard. MDCCLVIII. 

A Eeply to the Answer to a Letter lately addressed to the Dean 
of York. York: printed in the Year MDCCLIX. [Price Six-Pence.] 

The first of the three pamphlets is dated York, Dec. 11, 1758; to the 
second is appended an attestation dated York, Dec. 24, 1758; to the 
third is appended an attestation dated Dec. 26, 1758. Sterne thus 
wrote his Eomance during the first three weeks of January, 1759. 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 
1760. 

Small 8vo.* Two vols. First edition. The title-page contains a 
Greek quotation from the Encheiridion of Epictetus, the number of the 
volume, but nothing further, — no place of publication, no name of 
printer or publisher. But the advertisement of the forthcoming book 
in the London Chronicle for Dec. 24 — Jan. 1, 1760, has the following 

*The small octavos measure only 6x3% inches. 



532 LAURENCE STERNE 

addition to the title: "York, printed for and sold by John Hinxman 
(Successor to the late Mr. Hildyard), Bookseller in Stonegate; J. Dod- 
sley in Pallmall, .and M. Cooper in Pater-noster-row, London; and by 
all booksellers." This imprint appears in no extant copies so far as 
known The volumes were in the hands of reviewers in Dec, 1759. 
See pp. 181-183 of this biography. 

On April 3, 1760, appeared the second edition of the first instalment 
with the addition to the title-page of "London: Printed for R. and J. 
Dodsley. " The •second edition also contains a frontispiece by Ravenet 
after Hogarth and a dedication to the Right Honourable Mr. Pitt. 
The second edition was twice reissued by Dodsley during 1760. 

There were several pirated editions. Especially interesting is an 
edition having the imprint: "London. Printed for D. Lynch, 1760." 
The copy in the Brittish Museum bears Sterne's signature. This edition 
has the dedication to Pitt, but not the frontispiece. 

The Sermons of Mr. Yorick. London : printed for R. and 
J. Dodsley in Pail-Mall. 

Small 8vo. Two vols., numbered I and II. No date. Published, 
May 22, 1760. Bust portrait to vol. I. by Ravenet after Reynolds. 
Preface and Subscribers, followed by a second title-page. 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 
London: Printed for E. and J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall. 
M.DCC.LXI. 

Small 8vo. Vols. Ill and IV. Each volume contains on the title- 
page a quotation from John of Salisbury. The first volume has a 
frontispiece by Ravenet after Hogarth. Published on Jan. 28, 1761. 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 
London: Printed for T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, in the 
Strand. MDCCLXII. 

Small 8vo. Vols. V. and VI. Each volume has on the title-page 
two quotations, one from Horace and one from Erasmus. The fifth 
volume has a dedication to the Right Honourable John, Lord Viscount 
Spencer. Sterne 's signature appears at the head of the first chapter. 
Published on Dec. 21, 1761. 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 
London : Printed for T. Becket and P. A. Dehont [sic] , in the 
Strand. MDCCLXV. 

Small 8vo. Volumes VII and VIII. The title-page to each volume 
has a quotation from Pliny. Signature at top of p. 1, vol. VII. Pub- 
lished on Jan. 22, 1765. 



APPENDIX 533 

The Sermons of Mr. Yorick. London: Printed for T. 
Becket and P. A. DeHondt, near Surry-Street, in the Strand. 
MDCCLXVI. 

Small 8vo. Two vols., numbered III and IV. Contents, a second 
title-page, and Subscribers ' Names. Published Jan. 22, 1766. 

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 
London: Printed for T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, in the 
Strand. MDCCLXVIL 

Small 8vo. Vol. IX Latin quotation on title-page. Dedication to 
a Great Man. Sterne's usual signature. Published on Jan. 30, 1767. 

A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. By 
Mr. Yorick. London: Printed for T. Becket and P. A. 
DeHondt, in the Strand. MDCCLXVIII. 

Two vols. Published in two styles: in small 8vo to match Tristram 
Shandy, and in large 8vo on imperial paper. There is a list of Sub- 
scribers with a star after the names of those who took imperial paper. 
In some copies appears an Advertisement promising that the work will 
be completed by the next winter. The Advertisement, being originally 
a loose sheet to be inserted in copies of either of the two styles, was 
rarely preserved. Published on February 24 or 25, 1768. See pp. 450-51 
of this biography. 

Sermons by the late Rev. Mr. Sterne. London: printed 
for W. Strahan; T. Cadell, Successor to Mr. Millar; and T. 
Beckett [sic] and Co. in the Strand. MDCCLXIX. 

Small 8vo. Three vols., numbered V, VI, VII. Contents and 
Subscribers follow title-page. Published during the first week of 
June, 1769. 

A Political Romance, Addressed To Esq. of 

York. London. Printed and sold by J. Murdoch, bookseller, 
opposite the New Exchange Coffee-house in the Strand. 
MDCCLXIX. 

12mo. Title, advertisement, and a list of the characters in the 
allegory with their real names opposite, pp. iv-x, Eomance pp. 1-47. 
This is a reprint, with many textual changes, of the first half of the 
pamphlet as it appeared in 1759. The Key and the appended letters of 
the first edition were entirely cut away. Hall-Stevenson seems to have 
been responsible for the reissue. 



534 LAUEENCE STEENE 

Letters from Yorick to Eliza. London, printed for G. 
Kearsly, at No. 46, in Fleet-street; and T. Evans, near York- 
Buildings, Strand. 1775. 

Small 8vo. One vol. Dedication to the Eight Honourable Lord 
Apsley, preface, and ten undated letters which Sterne sent to Mrs. 
Draper in the winter and spring of 1767. Published in Feb., 1775, 
apparently with Mrs. Draper's sanction. 

Sterne's Letters to His Friends on Various Occasions. 
To which is added, His History of a Watch Coat, with Ex- 
planatory Notes. London : printed for G. Kearsly, at No. 46, 
opposite Fetter-Lane, Fleet-Street; J. Johnson, in St. Paul's 
Church- Yard; and T. Evans, in the Strand. MDCCLXXY. 

Small 8vo. One vol. Introduction and thirteen letters, counting 
the Watch Coat (a reprint of the abridged Political Romance), which 
is treated as a letter. Published on July 12, 1775. Letters I-III 
comprise Sterne's first letter to Garrick, Dr. Eustace's letter to Sterne, 
and Sterne's reply to Dr. Eustace. Letters IV-X have often been 
pronounced spurious, apparently on the authority of William Combe, 
the author of Doctor Syntax, who said that he wrote seven of the letters 
in this volume. (See Combe's preface to his anonymous Letters sup- 
posed to have been written by Yorick and Eliza, London, 1779.) But 
Combe was lying. Some, and perhaps all, of the letters which he claimed 
to have fabricated in 1775, are genuine. Letter V had appeared in the 
London Magazine for March, 1774; and. was to be published later in 
1775, by Sterne's daughter, evidently from her father's copy. As she 
printed it, it bears the superscription "To Mrs. M[ea]d[ow]s, Coxwould, 
July 21, 1765." Letter IX exists in Sterne's own hand; it is the letter 
to Mrs. Elizabeth Vesey, "dated London June 20", in the Morgan 
Manuscripts. Letter X, in which Sterne refers to rumours of his death, 
may be accepted. So, too, Letter XII, on his library and books. 
Letters VI, VII, VIII and XI may be forgeries, though they are more 
likely genuine. 

Letters of the late Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne, to his most 
intimate Friends. With a Fragment in the Manner of 
Rabelais. To which are prefix 'd, Memoirs of his Life and 
Family, written by Himself. And published by his Daughter, 
Mrs. Medalle. London : printed for T. Becket, the Corner of 
the Adelphi, in the Strand. 1775. 

Small 8vo. Three vols. Dedication to Garrick, two poems in 
memory of Sterne, memoirs or autobiography, 118 letters, and a frag- 
ment which Sterne had cast aside in making up the fourth volume of 
Tristram Shandy. A frontispiece to the first volume represents Mrs. 



APPENDIX 535 

Medalle leaning over the bust of her father, from an engraving by 
Caldwall after West. Published on Oct. 25, 1775, though the preface 
bears the date, "June 1775". At the same time, Becket placed on sale 
a bronze bust of Sterne, "an exceeding good likeness". This is the 
largest and best single collection of Sterne's letters as originally 
published. 

Original Letters of the late Reverend Mr. Laurence Sterne ; 
never before published. London: printed at the Logographic 
Press, and sold by T. Longman, Pater-Noster Row ; J. Robson, 
and W. Clarke, new Bond Street ; and W. Richardson, under 
the Royal Exchange. 1788. 

12mo. One vol. Thirty-nine letters from Sterne to various friends, 
of which thirty had previously appeared in the European Magazine 
(Feb., 1787-Feb., 1788). Some of the letters are of doubtful authen- 
ticity, and others have certainly been tampered with; but most of them 
are in the main genuine beyond reasonable doubt, for the truth of the 
incidents related therein may be confirmed, partly by the Morgan 
Manuscripts and partly by what is known of Sterne from other sources. 
Of especial interest are letters VIII, IX, XI, XVIII, XIX, XXI 
(which may be dated Jan. 1, 1767), XXII, XXIII, XXXVII, and 

XXXIX. "Mrs. V " of the correspondence is Mrs. Vesey; "Lady 

C — i — H" is probably Lady Caroline Hervey; and "W. C. Esq." may 
be William Combe, Esq., with whom Sterne was acquainted. It may be 
conjectured that Combe was responsible for the publication. 

Seven Letters written by Sterne and His Friends, hitherto 
unpublished. Edited by W. Durrant Cooper, F. S. A. Lon- 
don: printed for private circulation, by T. Richards, 100, St. 
Martin's Lane. 1844. 

8vo. One vol. Most interesting for two letters from Sterne to 
Hall- Stevenson respecting Sterne in France, and for Cooper's notes on 
the Demoniacs. 



Unpublished Letters of Laurence Sterne. In Miscellanies 
of the Philobiblon Society, vol. II (London, 1855-56). 

Preface by John Murray (1808-92), who found the manuscripts 
among his father's papers. Thirteen letters, — twelve from Sterne to 
Miss Catherine de Fourmantelle, and one from her, apparently written 
at Sterne's dictation, to a friend in London. Five of the letters had 
previously appeared in Isaac D 'Israeli's Miscellanies of Literature, 
vol. I, 27-28 (London, 1840). 



536 LAURENCE STERNE 

Three Letters forming a part of the Alfred Morrison Col- 
lection as described above. (Catalogue of the same, printed 
for private circulation, VI. [London], 1892.) For fac- 
simile of the second letter, see plate 153 of the Catalogue. 

Four Letters from Sterne to Lord Fauconberg. In six- 
teenth Eeport of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. 
Various Collections, vol. II, 189-92 (London, 1903). De- 
scribed above. 

Single Letters : 

Letter addressed to * * * *, beginning "I have received 
your kind letter of critical, and I will add, of parental 
advice." (Sterne's Works X, 138-141, London, 1780.) 
Sterne's copy of this letter on the indiscretions of Tristram 
Shandy, hitherto supposed to be spurious, forms a part of the 
Morgan Letter-Book. The letter as published differs con- 
siderably from the copy in Sterne 's hand. In the manuscript, 
it bears the superscription "York, Jan. 1, 1760." See 
Sterne's Letters and Miscellanies 1, 181, in Works (New York, 
1904). 

The so-called Hay Letter (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 
LXIII, Pt. II, 587). See Letters and Miscellanies, I, 124-26. 

Letter to George Whatley, Esq., treasurer of the London 
Foundling Hospital, dated March 25, 1761 (Monthly Reposi- 
tory of Theology and General Literature, I, 406). 

Letter to Dodsley on the publication of Tristram Shandy 
(T. F. Dibdin, Reminiscences, Pt. I, 207 (London, 1836). 
See Letters and Miscellanies, I, 127-129. 

Letter to Mrs. Sterne, dated Paris, March 15, 1762. Con- 
tributed by H. A. B. to Notes and Queries, first series, V, 254. 

Letter to Becket, his publisher, dated Coxwould, Sept. 3, 
1767. Contributed by Edward Foss to Notes and Queries, 
second series, iv, 126. 

Letter to Becket, dated Paris, Oct. 19, 1765 (Notes and 
Queries, fourth series, XII, 244-45). 

Verses occasion 'd by hearing a Pass-Bell. In Thomas 
Gill's Vallis Eboracensis, 199-200 (London, 1852). 



APPENDIX 537 

An Unpublished Fragment (Fragment inedit), addressed 
to Mr. Cook. In Paul Stapf er 's Laurence Sterne, sa Personne 
et ses Ouvrages. (Paris, 1870.) 

Collected Works. In 1780, the publishers who owned the 
copyrights on Sterne's books brought out "all the works of 
Mr. Sterne, either made public during his lifetime or since 
his death." Ten volumes, 8vo. A few letters, now known 
to be genuine, were not included. This edition of Sterne's 
works has been the basis of most subsequent editions. It was 
reissued in 1894, with the omission of many sermons and some 
of the letters, under the supervision of Professor Saintsbury. 
(6 vols., London and New York.) Additional letters are 
contained in the edition by Dr. J. P. Brown (4 vols., London, 
1873, often reprinted). For the Works of Laurence Sterne 
(12 vols., New York, 1904; reissued in 6 vols.), the author of 
this biography collected and rearranged nearly all Sterne's 
published letters, and had transcribed all the letters of Sterne 
and Mrs. Draper in the British Museum. No letters, however, 
of the volume of 1788 were included, for they were all then 
held to be spurious, 



INDEX 



Abuses of Conscience, sermon, 82 and 

n, 85-86, 227, 351, 530-531. 
A?ta Eruditorum, 143. 
Adams, John, anecdote of Sterne, 

229 n. 
Addison, Joseph, 147 and n, 407. 
Admonitory Letter addressed to the 

Rev. Mr. S , An, 265. 

Alembert, Jean le Rond d', 278. 
Anatomy of Melancholy, see Burton, 

Robert. 
Anderson, Sir Edmund, 158. 
Answer to a Letter address' d to the 

Dean of York, 162 n, 163, 176, 531. 
Apsley, Baron, 505, 534. 
Arbuthnot, Dr. John, Martin Scrib- 

lerus, 134-135. 
Aristophanes, 522. 
Aristotle, 516. 
Arms, coat of, Sterne's, 4. 
Arnaud, Abbe Francois, 280. 
Ash, Mrs. and Miss, 113-114 and n. 
Ashton, Charles, 27. 
Athenaeum, The, 183 n, 414, 489 n. 
Atkinson, Dr. James, 110. 
Aumale, Due d\ 289 n. 

Bacon, Francis, 138. 

Bagehot, Walter, on Sterne's sermons, 
230; on Sterne's character, 515. 

Bagge, Charles Ernest, Baron de, 286. 

Barrymore, Countess of, wife of fifth 
Earl, 342. 

Basing, first Baron, 403. 

Basing, second Baron, 403, 528, 529. 

Bath, Sterne's visit to, 339-341. 

Bathurst, first Earl, introduces himself 
to Sterne, 200 ; friendship with, 
216, 407, 505, 506, 511. 

Baxter, Richard, 7 and n, 8. 

Bayle's Dictionary, 260. 

Beauchamp, Lord, son of Earl of 
Hertford, 325. 

Beauclerk, Topham, 456. 

Becket, Thomas, Sterne's second pub- 
lisher, 266, 295, 296, 312, 316, 322, 
333, 350, 351 n, 386, 450, 460, 
525, 527, 528, 532, 533, 536; at 



Sterne's funeral, 463 ; sums re- 
ceived from, 471; negotiations with 

Lydia, 474-475, 484; negotiations 

with Mrs. Draper, 487, 491. 
Bedford, fourth Duke of, 290, 325. 
Behn, Mrs. Aphra, novels, 29. 
Belasyse, or Bellasyse, Lord, 398. 
Berdmore, William, Preb. of York, 92, 

157, 227 n, 524. 
Berenger, Richard, 201-202, 248, 473, 

526- 
Berkeley, George, sermons, 144. 
Berkeley, Lord, 291. 
Beroalde de Verville, Moyen de Par- 

nevir, 131, 133, 134, 136, 471 n. 
Bertram Montfichet, The Life and 

Opinions of, 254. 
Beveridge, William, sermons, 224. 
Bible, Sterne's style founded on, 144, 

281, 479, 518. 
Biron, Due de, 285-286. 
Bissy, Comte de, friendship with 

Sterne, 275, 283-285, 324, 370. 
Blackburne, Francis, Archdeacon of 

Cleveland, 89, 91, 525. 
Blackburne, Lancelot, Archbishop of 

York, appoints Sterne to Sutton, 

39; character, 67. 
Blake, Rev. John, of York, identified, 

112-113 ; Sterne's intimate letters 

to, 113-115, 154, 183, 184, 515, 

527. 
Blaquiere, Col. John, 347. 
Blondel, L'Art de fetter les Bombes, 

142. 
Blount, Charles, Philostratus, 137. 
Boddam, Mary, see Sclater, Mary. 
Boddam, Rawson Hart, 409. 
Bode, J. J. C, translator, 454, 462 

and n. 
Boissy, Louis de, Le Francaise a 

Londres, 50 n, 273. 
Booh without a Title-page, A, 254. 
Boldero, John, of York, 100 and n. 
Bolingbroke's Patriot King, 247, 283. 
Bombay Quarterly Review, 504 n. 
Bonrepos, M., of Toulouse, 311. 



539 



540 



INDEX 



Booth, George Sclater, see Basing, 
first Baron. 

Boswell, James, meets Sterne, 265 ; 
quoted, 377, 383 n, 394. 

Bouchet, Guillaume, Serges, 131, 132- 
133, 134, 136, 471 n. 

Bradshaw, John, Sterne's tutor, 27. 

Braithwaite, Dr. Mark, of York, 156, 
157, 158; introduced into A Poli- 
tical Romance, 165. 

Bridges, Thomas, of York, portrait of 
Sterne, 110, 116. 

Broadley, Matthew, of Halifax, 19. 

Brook, Sir Robert, Graunde Abridge- 
ment, 138. 

Brousse et Fils, of Toulouse, 294. 

Brown, Dr. Jemmet, Bishop of Cork, 
426. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, Beligio Medici, 
144. 

Bruscambille, Pensees Factieuses, 131, 
133, 134, 471 n. 

Burford, Robert, 509-510. 

Burgersdicius, Francis, Sterne's bur- 
lesque of, 30. 

Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 
7 and n, 8. 

Burney, Charles, 222. 

Burton, Dr. John, of York, Tory 
leader, 64 ; persecution by Jaques 
Sterne, 75-78; his books, 76, 78, 
140; caricatured in Tristram 
Shandy, 80, 180, 238-240, 241; 
caricature by Romney, 110-111. 

Burton, Robert, Sterne's indebtedness 
to Anatomy of Melancholy, 139-140, 
149, 236, 260, 264 and n, 334, 398 
and n. 

Bute, third Earl of, 248, 342. 

Calais, Sterne's inn at, 361-365. 
Callis, Marmaduke, curate, 234. 
Campbell, Col. Donald, purse for 

Sterne's widow and daughter, 488 

and n, 489. 
Cannon, Charles, Sterne's first tutor, 

27. 
Cannon, Richard, history of Roger 

Sterne's regiment, 12 n. 
Carlyle, Alexander, 121. 
Carmontelle, Louis, portrait of Sterne, 

288-289, 293, 361, 381. 
Carr, John, imitator of Sterne, 215. 
Carter, Mrs. Elizabeth, 340, 426 n. 
Cataneo, Libro di Fortificare, 141. 
Centlivre, Mrs., Busy Body, 312. 
Cervantes, 131, 132, 180, 245, 331, 

401, 435, 523. 



Chamfort, S. R. N. de, 326. 

Chapman, Richard, of Newburgh 
Priory, 258, 294, 315. 

Chapone, Hester, 499. 

Chappelow, Rev. Leonard, 197. 

Charles I., King, 6, 9-10. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 279, 516. 

Cheap, Rev. Andrew, Sterne's suc- 
cessor at Sutton, 468; suit for 
dilapidations, 472. 

Chesterfield, fourth Earl of, 199, 200, 
361. 

Choiseul, Due de, grants Sterne pass- 
ports, 275, 284, 290; attracted to 
Sterne, 285; also 370. 

Cholmley, Nathaniel, 195, 198, 204, 
207. 

Christopher Wagstaffe, The Life and 
Adventures of, 267. 

Churchill, Charles, 324 n. 

Cibber, Colley, 279, 312. 

Clairon, Mile., 273, 274. 

Clark, Sir John, 501, 504, 510. 

Clayton, Robert, Bishop of Cork, 219. 

Clement, Pere Denis Xavier, 274-275. 

ClockmaJcer's Outcry against the 
Author of * * * Tristram Shandy, 
The, 213. 

Clonmel, Ireland, birthplace of Lau- 
rence Sterne, 13, 16, 94. 

Clough, John, of York, 162. 

Cliiver, Philipp, Germania Antiqua, 
burlesque of, 33. 

Coke, Lady Mary, on Sterne's death, 
461 and n. 

Colebrooks, Mr., 297. 

Coleridge, S. T., on Sterne, 399, 520. 

Colley, Launcelot, curate, 346. 

Collier, Marmaduke, curate, 234, 346. 

Collignon, Dr. Charles, dissector of 
Sterne's body, 464, 465. 

Colman, George, 425. 

Combe, William, acquaintance with 
Mrs. Draper, 507; Letters Supposed 
to have been Written by Yorick 
and Eliza, 508 ; as probable editor 
of Sterne's letters, 534, 535. 

Congreve, "William, plays, 29. 

Conti, Prince de, 286, 324. 

Cooper, W. D., 283 n, 311 n, 535. 

Cornelys, Mrs. Theresa, her assem- 
blies, 397-398, 402, 441-442. 

Cosway, Richard, portrait of Mrs. 
Draper, 407. 

Cowper, Rev. Charles, Preb. of York, 

92, 116, 157. 
Cowper, George Nassau Cowper, third 
Earl of, meets Sterne, 379. 



INDEX 



541 



Cowper, Lady Georgiana, 224. 

Cowper, Mr., of London, 343. 

Cox, Thomas, History of the Gram- 
mar School at Heath, 23 n. 

Coxwold, or Coxwould, Sterne appointed 
curate of, 200; described, 235, 257- 
260, 422. See also Shandy Hall. 

Cradock, Joseph, 215 and n. 

Craufurd, John, of Errol, in Paris 
with Sterne, 370-371; anecdote, 
371-372; appointment with Sterne, 
439; dinner on day of Sterne's 
death, 461. 

Crazy Castle, see Skelton Castle. 

Crazy Tales, 120, 128-129, 151, 299, 
309, 310, 336 n. 

Cream of Jest, The, or The Wits Out- 
witted, 214. 

Crebillon, C. P. Jolyot de, comic 
agreement with Sterne, 288 ; sub- 
scribes to Sermons, 350. 

Critical Review on Tristram Shandy 
(vols. I-II), 193; (vols. III-IV), 
252-253; (vols. V-VI), 267-268 and 
n; (vols. VII-VIII), 335 and n; 
(vol. IX), 400; on Sermons (vols. 
I-II), 223-224; on Sentimental 
Journey, 452. 

Croft, family of, 66. 

Croft, Henrietta, 66. 

Croft, John, of York, Anecdotes of 
Sterne, quoted or referred to, 43 
and n, 54, 56, 65, 72, 102, 131, 
181-182, 184, 205, 209, 229, 249, 
314, 462, 471. 

Croft, Stephen, of Stillington, friend- 
ship with Sterne, 65-66, 105, 107, 
109, 207; rescues Tristram Shandy 
from the flames, 179; takes Sterne 
to London, 195, 198, 200, 209; 
Sterne's letters to, 205, 212, 238, 
246, 248, 250, 253, 493; Sterne's 
attorney, 294; enclosing commons, 
333, 387; purchases the Sterne 
lands at Sutton, 490. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 6, 36. 

Crossley, James, 136 n. 

Cumberland, Duke of, 69-70. 

Cumberland Regiment of Foot, see 
Thirty-Fourth or Cumberland Regi- 
ment of Foot. 

Cunningham, Allan, on Sterne's death, 
459 and n. 

Cunningham (Conyngham), Francis 
Burton, second Baron, 339. 

Custobadie, Jacob, registrar, 92. 

Dance, Nathaniel, bust of Sterne, 381. 
Dante, 516. 



Danvers, Sir Charles, 311, 392. 

Dashwood, Sir Francis, 122, 123, 
248, 249. 

Davies, Robert, Life of Marmaduke 
Rawdon, 9«; Memoir of Dr. John 
Burton, 77 n; Memoir of York 
Press, 74 and n, 164, 182. 

Dawson, Lady Anne, 426. 

Dealtry, Dr. John, of York, 116, 183, 
347. 

Deffand, Mme. du, 371. 

Defoe, Daniel, quoted, 18 and n, 41, 
42 and n; Robinson Crusoe, 453. 

Delany, Mrs. Mary, 219 and n, 224. 

Delany, Patrick, 219. 

Delaval, Francis Drake, 249. 

Delavals, 395 and n, 439. 

Demoniacs, 122-129, 309, 320, 416, 
535. 

Dessein, M., a real person, 360, 361- 
363; Sterne at his inn, 363-365. 

Dewes, Mrs. John, 219 and n, 224. 

Dibdin, T. F., 110 and n, 536. 

Diderot, Denis, Natural Son (Le Fils 
Naturel), 274, 279; friendship with 
Sterne, 278-279, 287, 326, 370; 
Jacques le Fataliste, 279; subscribes 
to Sermons, 350; compared with 
Sterne, 518. 

Dillon, J. T., 290, 406, 419. 

Ditchfield, P. H., Parish Clerk, 245 n. 

Dodington, George Bubb, Baron Mel- 
combe, 122, 249. 

Dodsley, Robert, at first refuses Tris- 
tram Shandy (vols. I-II), 179-180, 
181, 182, 183; publishes second edi- 
tion, 202-203, 532; agreements with 
Sterne, 195, 208, 221; sums paid 
to Sterne, 471. 

Dormer, Charles Cottrell, 207. 

Douglas, J., Bombay and Western 
India, 488 n, 496 n, 504 n, 510 n. 

Drake, Dr. Francis, 74-75. 

Draper, Daniel, early career in India, 
405; visit to England with his wife 
and children, 405 ; Sterne's letter to, 
424; Tellicherry, 485; Surat, 496; 
removed from his post, 496-497; 
quarrel with his wife, 497-498; her 
elopement, 500, 504. 

Draper, Mrs. Elizabeth (wife of 
Daniel Draper), family history, 403- 
404; birth at Anjengo, 404; educa- 
tion, 404; marriage, 405; children, 
405, 410, 486; visit to England, 
405 et seq.; meeting with Sterne at 
Mrs. James's, 406; excursions to- 
gether, 407; her portraits, 407, 410; 



542 



INDEX 



summons home, 408; Sterne's in- 
fatuation, 408-4i2, 440, 519, 520; 
her departure for India, 411; 
Sterne's Journal to Eliza, 412-432 ; 
her life at Bombay and Tellicherry, 
485-486; alarmed by Mrs. Sterne's 
threat to publish her letters to 
Sterne, 486-487; raises a purse for 
Mrs. Sterne, 487-488; at Surat, 
496; return to Bombay, 496-497; 
disagreement with her husband, 497- 
498, 500; a Blue-Stocking, 498- 
499; friends, 499-500; meets Abbe 
Raynal, 500 ; elopement with Sir 
John Clark, 500-501; letter in justi- 
fication of conduct, 501-503 and n; 
at Masulipatam, 503-505; return to 
England, 505; publishes letters 
from Sterne, 491, 505-506; atten- 
tions from Wilkes, 506, Combe and 
Raynal, 507; death, 507; tomb, 
507-508; eulogy by Raynal. 500, 
508-509; other tributes, 509-510; 
unpublished letters, 528-530; also 
343, 457, 494. 

Draper, Sir William, 405. 

Drummond, Robert Hays, Archbishop 
of York, 259; leave of absence 
granted Sterne, 268, 289, 313-314; 
anonymous letter against Sterne, 
399-400; Sterne's visits to, 421, 425. 

Dryden, John, 144. 

Dumesnil, Mile. Marie Frangoise, 273. 

Dunton, John, Voyage Bound the 
World, 135-136 and n, 267. 

D'Urfey, Tom, An Essay towards the 
Theory of the Intelligible World, 
135; compared with Sterne, 218. 

Dutens, Louis, anecdote of Sterne, 290- 
292 and n. 

Eachard, John, 27, 32 n. 

Edgcumbe, Emma Gilbert, Countess of, 

160, 246, 259, 473. 
Edgcumbe, Richard, second Baron, 199. 
Editions of Sterne's works, described, 

530-537. 
Edmundsons, 295, 299. 
Effingham, third Earl of, 332, 344, 

347, 349. 
Eglinton, Lord, 461. 
Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath, 

sermon, 84-85, 184, 227, 530. 
Eliza, see Draper, Mrs. Elizabeth. 
Epictetus, Encheiridion, 183, 531. 
Epinay, Mme. d', 384. 
Epi8tolce Obscurorum Virorum, 127. 
Erasmus, Oolloquia, 137, 264, 532. 



Ernulf, Bishop of Rochester, Textus 
Boffensis, 138, 236, 239, 240, 252. 

Errington, Mr., with Sterne in Italy, 
380, 381, 382, 386. 

European Magazine, 111 n, 385 n. 

Eustace, Dr., of North Carolina, let- 
ter and walking-stick, 443-444, 534. 

Explanatory BemarJcs upon * * * 
Tristram Shandy, 213-214. 

Fagniani, Marchesa, Sterne's en- 
counter with at Milan, 378-379. 

Fairfax, Thomas, Lord, 53 and n. 

Faldoni, G. A., engraver, 111. 

Farmer, Richard, 218-219. 

Fauconberg, Thomas, first Earl of, pa- 
tron, 92, 105, 106, 235; nominates 
Sterne to Coxwold, 200 ; grants 
Sterne leave of absence, 289; Sterne 
sends him wine, 318; also 264, 394, 
396, 398, 463, 468, 469, 527, 536. 

Felix, Father, original of Father Lo- 
renzo, 363-364. 

Fenton, Mrs., of London, 473. 

Ferdinand, Prince, of Brunswick, 207, 
247. 

Ferguson, Mrs., 342, 440, 519, 526. 

Ferriar, John, Illustrations of Sterne, 
132 n; on Sterne's death, 459 n. 

Fielding, Henry, compared with Sterne, 
401, 435, 523. 

Fitzgerald, Percy, Life of Sterne, 23- 
24 and n; 114, 164. See also the 
Preface. 

Fitzmaurice, Dr., 318. 

Fitzmaurice, Thomas, 442 n. 

Fitzwilliam, second Earl of, 332. 

Fizes, Dr. Antoine, of Montpellier, 319, 
321-322. 

Flud, Robert, Vtrius Cosmi * * * 
Historia, 138. 

Foley, Mr., Sterne's banker at Paris, 
294, 312, 315-316, 321, 322, 331, 
338, 350, 361, 370, 428, 526. 

Fontenelle, Pluralite des Mondes, 146, 
148. 

Foote, Samuel, 249, 252, 265; Trip to 
Calais, 362; in Paris with Sterne, 
370, 371. 

Forbes, James, Oriental Memoirs, 500 
and n, 509. 

Fothergill, Marmaduke, of York, 117, 
179, 295; anecdote of Sterne, 347 J 
letters from Sterne, 473. 

Fountayne, John, Dean of York, at 
Cambridge with Sterne, 28; ap- 
pointed Dean of York, 83; aids 
Sterne, 87, 89, 92-93, 94, 96, 105, 



INDEX 



543 



155, 156; quarrel with Dr. Top- 
ham, 154-164; pamphlet against 
Topham, 163; aided by Sterne, 158- 
159, 163-164; introduced into A 
Political Romance, 165-167, 169; 
purchases Sterne's lands at Sutton, 
490. 

Fourmantelle, Miss Catherine, Sterne's 
flirtation with, 185-187, 196, 199, 
203-204, 275, 519, 535; appears as 
Jenny in Tristram Shandy, 401. 

Fox, Charles James, 273, 324. 

Fox, Stephen, 273, 280, 324. 

Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais, 
492. 

Francavilla, Princess, 380. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 255, 394. 

Frazer, J. B., 509. 

Frenais, J. P., translator, 454, 455 n. 

Fumel, Comtesse de, of Toulouse, 311. 

Funeral Discourse occasioned by thd 
much lamented Death of Mr. Yorick, 
A, 264. 



"Gabriel John," see D'Urfey, Tom. 

Gainsborough, Thomas, portrait of 
Sterne, 341 and n, 361, 513 ; por- 
trait of Ignatius Sancho, 390. 

Galiani, Abbe, bon mot of Sterne, 384 
and n. 

Galileo, 143. 

Gambier, Mr., 499-500. 

Garat, D. J., 282 n, 287, 336. 

Gardes, J. F., of Albi, 490. 

Garland, Nathaniel, 124, 320. 

Garrick, David, praises Tristram 
Shandy, 194; introduces Sterne to 
London society, 196 and n, 198, 
214, 511, 514; subscriber to Ser- 
mons, 222 ; friendship with Sterne, 
248, 251; lends Sterne £20, 268; 
receives account of Sterne's recep- 
tion in Paris, 273-274, 275-276, 
283, 287; misunderstanding between 
Garrick and Sterne, 330; renewal 
of intimacy, 337-338, 344; Cymon, 
392-393; at Skelton with Sterne, 
425; Sterne's death announced to, 
461 ; epitaph for Sterne's tomb, 466, 
492 ; receives dedication of Sterne's 
letters, 491, 492; also 394, 473, 493, 
528, 534. 

Garrick, Mrs., regard for Sterne, 338, 
511; also 519. 

Gay, John, Beggar's Opera, 49, 68 
and n. 

Gazette LittJraire, 276, 285 n. 



General Advertiser, 85 n. 

Gent, Thomas, York printer, 52 and 
n, 72 and n. 

Gentleman's Magazine, 268. 

Geoffrin, Mme. Marie TherSse, 279, 
282. 

George III., King, 247, 248, 259, 394; 
as Asa in Sterne's Sermons, 478. 

Gibbs, Thomas Washbourne, of Bath, 
413-414, 525. 

Gilbert, Emma, daughter of Archbishop 
Gilbert, see Edgcumbe, Countess of. 

Gilbert, John, Archbishop of York, ap- 
pointment, 159 ; his part in quarrel 
between Dean Fountayne and Dr. 
Topham, 160-161, 162-163 ; intro- 
duced into A Political Romance, 
167-169; friendly to Sterne, 179, 
200; death, 259. 

Gilfillan, John, York printer, 73, 74. 

Gill, Thomas, Vallis Eboracensis, 39; 
Sterne's Unknown World, 149-151, 
536. 

Goethe, on Sterne, 217, 545. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, attack on Sterne, 
217-218; meets Sterne, 265. 

Gordon, Charles, fourth Earl of 
Aboyne, Sterne chaplain to, 54. 

Gordon, Lord William, 371. 

Gore, Mrs., 339. 

Gorecius, Descriptio Belli Ivonice, 141. 

Graeme, Miss Elizabeth, of Philadel* 
phia, meets Sterne, 347-348. 

Grafton, third Duke of, subscriber to 
Sentimental Journey, 452 ; receives 
news of Sterne's death, 461. 

Granby, Marquis of, 332. 

Gray, Sir James, 461. 

Gray, Thomas, on Hall-Stevenson, 119; 
on Sterne, 195, 203, 216 and n, 
224 and n. 

Greene, Rev. Thomas, 464. 

Gresset's Ver-Vert, 336 and n. 

Grey, Rev. Zachary, edition of Hudi- 
bras, 137, 197. 

Griffith, Richard, The Koran, 490-491 
and n. 

Griffiths, Ralph, see Monthly Review. 

Gunter, Sines and Tangents, 141. 



Hafen Slawkenbergius, The Life and 
Amours of, 265. 

Hailstone, Edward, of Bradford, 164. 

Halifax, second Earl of, 248. 

Halifax grammar schools, Sterne's edu- 
cation there, 17-25. 

Hall, George Lawson, 125. 



544 



INDEX 



Hall, Dr. Joseph, Sterne's use of in 
sermons, 131, 144, 226, 227, 353, 
356. 

Hall-Stevenson, John, see Stevenson, 
John Hall-. 

Hamilton, Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess 
of, Sterne's rem'ark on, 393. 

Hannah, Sterne's correspondence with, 
440. 

Hanxwell, Rev. Richard, 53. 

Harland, family of, 63. 

Harland, Philip, of Sutton, 39; rela- 
tions with Sterne, 63-65, 105, 106, 
350 ; ridiculed in Tristram Shandy, 
64, 244. 

Harland, Richard, of York, sells land 
to Sterne, 58, 63 and n, 490. 

Harris, James, Hermes, 215. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on Mrs. Sterne's 
portrait, 109-110 and n. 

Heath Grammar School, 19; tradi- 
tions of Sterne's attendance at, 19- 
21 ; History of, 23 n. 

Hebert, Agnes, see Sterne, Agnes. 

Heine, H., 454; on Sterne, 455 and n. 

Herbert, George, Outlandish Proverbs, 
450 and n. 

Herring, Thomas, Archbishop of York, 
68 and n; Association for Defence 
of Kingdom, 69 and n; attacks on 
Church of Rome, 81 and n; trans- 
lated to Canterbury, 82. 

Herring, William, Chancellor of York, 
89, 90, 92, 227 n, 524. 

Hertford, Earl of, Ambassador to 
Paris, 325; invites Sterne to preach 
at embassy, 326-328; letter of in- 
troduction, 382. 

Hervey, John, Lord, 341. 

H'esselridge, Thomas, 349, 350, 528. 

Hewitt, William, a Demoniac, 126; at 
Toulouse with Sterne, 294, 309, 311, 
312; at Montpellier, 318; at Lyons, 
320. 

Hildesley, Mark, Bishop of Man, on 
Sterne, 219-220. 

Hildyard, John, York bookseller, 88, 
89-91, 182, 530, 531, 532. 

Hill, G. B., Johnsonian Miscellanies 
215 n. 

Hill, Dr. John, biographical sketch 
of Sterne, 204-206, 207, 210, 211. 

Hinde, Captain, original of uncle Toby, 
188. 

Hinxman, John, York bookseller, 181, 
182, 183. 



Hipperholme Grammar School, 19 ; 
traditions of Sterne's attendance at, 
21-23. 

History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat, 
see Political Romance, A. 

History of his own Times, Burnet's, 
7 and n. 

Hitch, Rev. Robert, Preb. of York, 52, 
72. 

Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, 32, 33. 

Hogarth, William, Analysis of Beauty, 
108 ; Politician, 109 ; illustrations to 
Tristram Shandy, 202, 251, 480; 
also 222, 514, 532. 

Holbach, Paul Thiry, Baron d', friend- 
ship with Sterne, 275, 277-278, 281, 
324, 326, 370; also 350, 518. 

Holbein, Hans, 137. 

Holland, Henry Fox, first Baron, 201, 
273. 

Home, John, Siege of Aquileia, 196; 
Douglas, 328. 

Homer, Sterne's fondness for, 24-25, 
29. 

Horace, Sterne's favourite Latin 
author, 24; burlesqued, 30; motto 
from, 264, 532. 

Horne-Tooke, John, see Tooke, John 
Home. 

H'orsley, George, 499, 501. 

Howe, Caroline, 461. 

Hudson, A. H., of York, on Sterne's 
letters to Blake, 114. 

Human Understanding , The, see Locke, 
John. 

Hume, David, secretary to English 
embassy at Paris, 325-326 and n, 
370; quizzes Sterne on miracles, 
328; laments Sterne's death, 461; 
also 338. 

Hurd, Richard, Bishop of Worcester, 
267. 

Hurdis, Thomas, Preb. of York, 116. 

Hutton, Matthew, Archbishop of York, 
appointment, 82 ; unfriendly towards 
Sterne, 87, 91; favours Dr. Top- 
ham in the great quarrel, 155, 157, 
159; introduced into A Political 
Romance, 165-166. 

Hyder Ali, 486, 503. 



Impromptu, An, 492. 

Ireland, the Sternes of, 4; see also 

Clonmel. 
Irvine, Andrew ("Paddy"), 124, 126. 

Jackson, Christopher, of Halifax, 21. 



INDEX 



545 



James, Mrs. Anne (wife of Com- 
modore James), friendship with 
Sterne, 396, 417-418, 440, 441-442, 
456, 519; Sterne's last letter to, 
458-459, 493; introduces him to 
Mrs. Draper, 4C3; friendship with 
Mrs. Draper, 405, 407, 410; letters 
from Mrs. Draper, 413, 487, 497- 
498; also 429, 431, 434, 437, 438, 
484, 505, 525. 

James, Commodore William, career, 
395; marriage, 396; Sterne's in- 
timacy with, 396; with Sterne be- 
fore death, 458, 460 ; receives news 
of Sterne's death, 461; at Sterne's 
funeral, 463. 

Jamme, Dr. Alexandre Auguste, of 
Toulouse, 311; letter to, 381, 528. 

Jaques, family of, ancestors of Lau- 
rence Sterne, 9-10. 

Jaques, Lady Mary, 9-10. 

Jaques, Mary, granddaughter of the 
preceding, see Sterne, Mary. 

Jaques, Sir Roger, grandfather of 
Mary Sterne, 9, 66. 

Jaques, Roger, brother of Mary Sterne, 
10. 

Jesus College, Cambridge, Sterne's 
education there, 26-35 and n. 

John of Salisbury, 238, 532. 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, Basselas, 144, 
181; on Sterne, 218 and n, 224- 
225; meeting between Sterne and 
Johnson, 265-266; on Father Felix, 
364; also 340, 456. 

Johnstone, Charles, Chrysal, 123 n. 

Journal Encyclopidique, on Tristram 
Shandy, 276. 

Journal to Eliza, manuscript, 412-414, 
487, 525; preface, 414-415; con- 
tents, 415 et seq.; as emotional 
background to Sentimental Journey, 
433-435. 

Jubb, Henry, York apothecary, 79. 

Jubb, Robert, York notary, 470. 

Keller, Frederick, Sterne's association 

with, 27, 33. 
Kilner, James, curate, 294, 332-333. 
Kingsley, Charles, 523. 
Kirk, Thomas, of Cookridge, 44. 
Koran, The, see Griffith, Richard. 

Lady's Magazine, 490. 

La Fleur, Sterne's valet, a real person, 

360, 366-367, 368, 372, 373, 384- 

385 and n. 
Lamb, Charles, 433. 

85 



Lamberti, Marquise de, 365. 
Lansdowne, first Marquis of, see Shel* 

burne, Earl of. 
La Popeliniere, A. J. J., attentions to 

Sterne, 286, 302. 
Lascelles, "Bombay," 425. 
Lascelles, Edwin, M. P., 442 and n. 
Lascelles, Rev. Robert ("Panty"), 

124, 126, 128. 
Laud, "William, Archbishop of Can. 

terbury, 5-6, 134 n. 
Lawrence, Dr. Thomas, 194 n. 
Lee, , of York, contributes £100 

to the publication of Tristram 

Shandy, 181, 183. 
Lee, Arthur, of Virginia, Sterne's 

friendship with, 393, and n, 394, 

422, 433, 440. 
Lee, Col. Charles, 125-126. 
Lee, Sidney, article on Sterne in 

Diet. Nat. Biog., quoted or referred 

to, 54, 164, and Preface. 
Leightonhouse, Walter, Preb. of Lin- 
coln, Sterne's plagiarisms from, 476- 

477 and n. 
Lepell, Lady, see Mulgrave, Baroness. 
Lespinasse, Mile, de, 282. 
Lessing, coins empfindsam for senti- 
mental, 454; on Sterne's death, 462, 

512. 
Letter address'd to * * * the Dean 

of York, A, 163, 531. 
Letter from a Methodist Preacher to 

Mr. Sterne, 214. 
Letter from the Rev. George Whitfield, 

B.A,., to the Rev. Laurence Sterne, 

214. 
Letters from Eliza to Yorick (spuri- 
ous), 506. 
Letters from YoricJc to Eliza, 505-506, 

534. 
Letters of the Late Rev. Mr. Laurence 

Sterne, 492-495, 534-535. 
Levett, Rev. Richard, Preb. of York, 

53 and n. 
Life of William III. (anonymous), 140. 
Light, Miss, companion of Mrs. Draper, 

410. 
Limory, G., of Albi, 490. 
Lister, Thomas, of Heath Grammar 

School, 20, 21, 26. 
Lloyd, Robert, publishes premature 

elegy on Sterne, 330-331. 
Lloyd's Evening Post, 254, 394 n, 399, 

411 n. 
Locke, John, Human Understanding, 

Sterne's admiration for, 33, 236, 

279, 282, 518. 



546 



INDEX 



'Lom€nie de Brienne, 308. 
London Chronicle, 117 n, 177 n, 182, 

195, 268, 269, 285 n, 324 n, 325 n, 

380, 452 n, 531-532. 
London Evening Post, 74, 77. 
London Magazine, on Tristram Shandy 

(vols. I-II), 193; (vols. III-IV), 

251; (vols. V-VI), 268. 
London, Sterne's visits to, 127-128, 

194-209, 246-256, 265-268, 330-331, 

337-343, 350, 384, 392-398, 403, 

et seq., 441-443, 456-459. 
Longinus, praised, 30. 
Loreni, on fortifications, 141. 
Lucian, Dialogues, 131, 132; also 331, 

522. 
Lully, Raymond, 32, 138. 
Lumley, family of, 42-45 and n. 
Lumley, Elizabeth, see Sterne, Eliza- 
beth (wife of Laurence). 
Lumley, Lydia, mother of Mrs. Sterne, 

44-45. 
Lumley, Lydia, sister of Mrs. Sterne, 

44, 45. 
Lumley, Robert, father of Mrs. Sterne, 

43. 
Luther, Martin, 137, 241. 
Lyons, Sterne at, 301-304. 
Lyttelton, George, first Baron, 199- 

200, 216, 383. 
Lyttelton, Lady Mary, correspondence 

with Sterne, 212, 473, 526. 

Macalister, Dr. Alexander, on dis- 
position of Sterne's body, 465 and n. 

Macartney, Sir George, in Paris with 
Sterne, 273, 280; presents Sterne 
with gold snuff box, 423 ; appoint- 
ment with, 439; also 442, 452. 

Macarty, Abbe, of Toulouse, 294, 296, 
308, 310. 

Macdonald, Sir James, with Sterne in 
Italy, 377-378, 379, 380, 381, 386; 
illness and death, 382-383. 

Macdonald, John, footman, 372 n; 
present at Sterne's death, 461 and n. 

Macdonald, Lady Margaret, 383. 

Mackenzie, Dr. James, 140. 

Macmillan's Magazine, quoted, 188. 

Malone, Edmond, with Mrs. Sterne at 
Marseilles, 391 and n; on Sterne's 
death, 459 and n. 

Malthus, Pratique de la Guerre, 143. 

Mann, Sir Horace, 217; meets Sterne, 
379 and n. 

Manuscripts of Sterne, described, 524- 
528. See als* the Preface. 

March, third Earl of (afterwards 



fourth Duke of Queensberry), 

Sterne's associations with, 395, 461. 
Marivaux, Pierre de, 131. 
Marolois, Fortification ou Architecture 

Militaire, 142. 
Mathews, Charles, lays Sterne's ghost, 

510. 
Maynard, Sir William, fourth Baronet, 

349, 350. 
Mead, Dr. Richard, in Tristram 

Shandy, 193-194. 
Meadows, Mrs., 311, 316, 345-346, 

534. 
Medalle, Jean Baptiste Alexandre de, 

husband of Lydia Sterne, 488-489 

and n, 490. 
Medalle, Mrs., see Sterne, Lydia. 
Medmenham Abbey, 122-123 and n, 

249. 
Melcombe Regis, Lord, see Dodington, 

George Bubb. 
Mihill, Eliza, 501. 
Miller, Joe, Jests, 29. 
Mills, Mr., London merchant, 316, 322, 

527. 
Milner, Abraham, usher at Heath 

grammar school, 20. 
Milton, Paradise Lost, 49 ; also 481. 
Monsey, Dr. Messenger, 205. 
Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 340, 498. 
Montagu, George, fourth Duke of, 388, 

402. 
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 506. 
Montaigne, 131; Sterne's indebted- 
ness to, 134 and n. 
Monthly Repository, The, 103 n, 255 n. 
Monthly Review, on Tristram Shandy 

(vols. I-II), 193; (vols. III-IV), 

251-252; (vols. V-VI), 268 and n; 

(vols. VII- VIII), 336; Sermons 

(vols. I-II), 222-223; Sentimental 

Journey, 452-453. 
Montpellier, Sterne's winter at, 317- 

322. 
Montreuil, Sterne's night at, 365-367. 
Moor or Moore, Mrs., of Bath, 339, 

473. 
Moore, Cecil, History of St. George's 

Chapel, 465 n. 
Moore, Zachary, a Demoniac, 125 and 

n, 129. 
Morellet, Abbe Andre, 277, 287, 384 n. 
Morgan Manuscripts, 134 n, 212 n, 

227 n, 236 n, 340 n, 342 n, 388 n, 

392 n, 473 n, 517 n, 521 n, 526- 

527. See also the Preface. 
Mulgrave, second Baron, 341. 
Mulgrave, Baroness, 341-342. 



INDEX 



547 



Murphy, Arthur, School for Guardians, 
393. 

Murray, John, publisher, 185 and n, 

535. 
Musgrave, Rev. Richard, Vicar of Stil- 

lington, 53. 

Napier, Logarithm.?, 141. 

Naples, Sterne's winter at, 380-381. 

Needham, J. T., 290. 

Newcastle, Duke of, 83, 84. 

Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of, 499. 

New Monthly Magazine, 219 n, 265 n. 

Newman, J. H., on Sterne's eloquence, 

479 and n. 
Newton, John, 32, 33. 
Newton, Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Bris- 
tol, 197. 
Newton, Rev. Thomas, successor of 

Sterne at Coxwold, 468. 
Nicholls, Dr. Frank, 194. 
Nollekens, Joseph, bust of Sterne, 3 81 

and n; replica, 469; also Preface. 
Northumberland, Duchess of, 248. 
Notes and Queries, 109 n, 111 n, 265 n, 

367 n, 392 n, 438 n, 451 n, 459 n, 

469 n. 
Nunehams, the, of Nuneham Hall, 

friends of Mrs. Draper, 406, 410, 

505. 

Oglethorpe, J. E., 119. 

Orbessan, Baron d', of Toulouse, 311. 

Ord, J. W., History of Cleveland, 
119 n, 125 n. 

Original Letters of the late Rev. Lau- 
rence Sterne, 194 n, 328 n, 535. 

Orleans, Due d', 288. 

Orme, Robert, History of the British 
Nation in India, 395 and n, 396. 

Osbaldeston, Richard, Dean of York, 
marries Sterne, 49 ; Sterne's sermon 
dedicated to, 67-68; translated to 
Carlisle, 82-83. 

Ossory, Lord, see Upper Ossory, sec- 
ond Earl. 

Ovid, read fcy Sterne at school, 24. 

Ozell, John, translator of Rabelais, 
Sterne's indebtedness to, 132 and n, 
236, 238 and n, 241 and n, 260. 

Pagan, Comte de, TraiU des Fortifica- 
tions, 142. 

Panchaud, M., Sterne's banker at 
Paris, 294, 350, 370, 376, 382, 386, 
387, 391, 399, 402, 428, 431, 452, 
526, 527; failure, 482, 483. 

Panchaud, Mile., 297. 



Paris, Sterne's first visit, 272-292; 
second visit, 323-329; third visit, 
367-372; last visit, 384. 

Pedigree of Sterne family, 11 n. 

Pelletiere, Etienne Michel, 275. 

Pennyman, Sir William, high sheriff, 
Sterne chaplain to, 85, 86, 93. 

Peploe, Samuel, Bishop of Chester, 
ordains Sterne priest, 38. 

Percy, Lady Anne, Sterne's friendship 
with, 342-343 and n, 344, 519. 

Percy, Hugh (Earl Percy), 342. 

Peters, Rev. Charles, 197. 

Pickering, Dr. Thomas, uncle of Mrs. 
Draper, 404, 409; his wife Eliza- 
beth, 404, 485, 528, 529. 

Piganiol de la Force, Nouveau Voyage 
en France, used by Sterne, 300, 302, 
335. 

Pigott, William, Vicar of St. Ives, 36. 

Pindar, Sterne's opinion of, 29. 

Piozzi, Mrs. Hester Lynch, Journey 
through France, 363-364, 365 and n. 

Pitt, William, dedication of Tristram 
Shandy (vols. I-II), 202-203, 532; 
Sterne's admiration for, 247, 248, 
251 ; letters of introduction, 268, 
277, 382; dedication of last vol. of 
Tristram Shandy, 399. 

Pliny, 334, 532. 

Political Romance, A, its occasion, 154- 
164; described, 164-177; Key to 
same, 169-173, 188-189; burned, 
177, 178; editions of, 531, 533, 534. 

Poole, John, dramatist, 360 n. 

Pope, Alexander, Essay on Man, 49, 
145-146, 153; Epistle to Dr. Ar- 
buthnot, 135; Dying Christian, 149; 
Imitations of Horace, 244 ; works, 
279; also 407. 

Portland, third Duke of, meets Sterne, 
379. 

Portraits of Sterne, by Ramsay, 34, 
35 n; Bridges, 110; Steele, 110;' 
Reynolds, 201 and n, 221, 253-254, 
513; Carmontelle, 288-289, 293; a 
second portrait by Reynolds, 331 
and n; Gainsborough, 341 and n, 
513; the Nollekens bust, 381 and n; 
Dance's bust, 381. For later por- 
traits see the Preface. 

Posthumous Works of a late Celebrated 
Genius, see Griffith, Richard. 

Powell, William, actor, 337. 

Pretender, the Young, 68-69, 74, 78, 
518. 

Preville, Pierre Louis, 273. 

Price, David, Memoirs, 405 w. 



548 



INDEX 



Prior, James, 391 n, 407. 

Pryce, George, Popular History of 

Bristol, 507 w, 508 n. 
Public Advertiser, 256 n, 398 n. 
Public Ledger, 211, 217, 399, 400. 
Pufendorf, Samuel, Law of Nature, 

burlesqued, 32-33. 

Queensberry, fourth Duke of, see 
March, third Earl of. 



Rabelais, Sterne's first acquaintance 
with, 28-29; indebtedness to, 132 
and n, 136, 173, 193, 236, 241 and 
n, 245, 252, 260, 268, 492; also 
317, 331. See Ozell, John. 

Radcliffe, Ann, buried near Sterne 
465. 

Rainbowe, Edward, Bishop of Carlisle 
8. 

Ramelli, Le Diverse ed Artificiose Ma 
chine, 141. 

Ramsay, Allan, portrait of Sterne, 34 
35 n. 

Ravenet, S. F., engraver, 201, 221 
251, 532. 

Rawdon, family of, ancestors of Lau 
rence Sterne, 9-10. 

Rawdon, Laurence, father of Lady 
Mary Jaques, 9, 17. 

Rawdon, Marmaduke, brother of Lady 
Mary Jaques, 9 and n. 

Rawdon, Mary, see Jaques, Lady Mary. 

Ray, Mr., Sterne's banker at Mont- 
pellier, 315, 318, 322. 

Raynal, Abbe\ G. T. F., friendship 
with Mrs. Draper, 500 and n, 507; 
eulogy on Mrs. Draper, 508-509 and 
n. 

Reed, Isaac, 226, 227 n. 

Reliquiae Baxteriance, quoted, 7 n, 8. 

Reply to the Answer to a Letter lately 
addressed to the Dean of York, A, 
163-164, 174, 531. 

Reynolds, Frederic, quoted, 161 and n, 
362-363. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, first portrait of 
Sterne, 201 and n, 221, 253, 361, 
362, 513; subscriber to Sermons, 
222; in Tristram Shandy, 251; sec- 
ond portrait of Sterne, 331 and n ; 
with Sterne before death, 459 n, 
460 and n; also 199, 514. 

Reynolds, Richard, Bishop of Lincoln, 
ordains Sterne deacon, 36. 

Ricard, or Ricord, Arthur, of York, 
100 and n, 470. 



Richardson, Samuel, on Sterne, 219- 

220 ; contrasted with, 516. 
Rivers, George Pitt, first Baron, 290. 
Robinson Crusoe, 453. 
Rochester's poems, 29, 144. 
Rochford, fourth Earl of, 322. 
Rockingham, second Marquis of, 199, 

514; takes Sterne to Windsor, 207- 

208; at York races, 332. 
Rodd, Thomas, bookseller, 136 n. 
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 263. 
Rome, Sterne's visit to, 379-380, 381- 

382. 
Romney, George, 110, 111. 
Rousseau, J. J., 278, 283, 320; 

Sterne's projected visit to, 323. 
Roxburgh, third Duke of, 461. 
Royal Female Magazine, 204, 207. 
Rutland, third Duke of, 248. 

Sade, Abbe" de, friendship with Mrs. 
Sterne and daughter, 391. 

St. Ives, Sterne's curacy, 36. 

St. James's Chronicle, 72-73, 268, 269, 
270, 380 n, 389 n, 398 n, 459 n, 
464 n. 

Sancho, Ignatius, correspondence with 
Sterne, 387-388, 439, 526; portrait 
by Gainsborough, 390 ; obtains sub- 
scribers to Sterne's Sermons, 402. 

Sandwich, fourth Earl of, 122, 123. 

Scarborough, Sterne's visits to, 118, 
332, 426. 

Scarron, Paul, 403, 435. 

Sclater, family of, 403-404. 

Sclater, Elizabeth, see Draper, Mrs. 
Elizabeth. 

Sclater, Elizabeth, cousin of Mrs. 
Draper, 404, 528-529. 

Sclater, Louisa, sister of Mrs. Draper, 
404, 485. 

Sclater, Mary, sister of Mrs. Draper, 
404, 409, 529. 

Sclater, May, father of Mrs. Draper, 
404, 530. 

Sclater, Thomas Mathew, cousin of 
Mrs. Draper, their early friendship, 
404, 405; receives Sterne's first let- 
ter to Mrs. Draper, 406 ; later 
letters from Mrs. Draper, 496 and 
n, 504-505, 507, 529. 

Scott, Rev. George, of Coxwold, 149. 

Selwin, Mr., banker, 294. 

Selwyn, George Augustus, attentions 
to Sterne, 442-443. 

Sentimental Journey, as autobiography, 
360, et seq.; relation to Journal to 
Eliza, 433-435; relation to Smollett's 



INDEX 



549 



Travels, 435-437; purpose, 437; 
composition, 432, 437-438; manu- 
script, 445-450, 524; published in 
two styles, 450; "Advertisement", 
451 and n; subscribers, 401-402, 451- 
452 ; reception, 452-453 ; second edi- 
tion, 452 n; translations, 453-454; 
comments abroad, 454-455 ; con- 
tinued by Hall- Stevenson, 480. 

Sentimental Magazine, The, 490. 

Sermons of Mr. YoricTc (vols. I-II) 
agreement with Dodsley, 195, 208 
220-221; published, 221; preface 
221-222; attacked for title-page, 222 
223 ; praised for eloquence, 223 
225; not written for publication, 88 
89, 225, 226-227 and n, 228-229 
their character, 230-232; (vols. Ill 
IV), prepared for the press, 313 
344, 348; subscribers, 338-339, 348 
349; published, 351; described, 352 
359; (vols. V-VII, entitled Sermons 
by the late Rev. Mr. Sterne), pub 
lished, 473-475 ; plagiarisms, 476 
478; notable passages, 478-479; ex 
tant manuscripts, 524. 

Sessions Dinner, 158, 162 n, 163, 176 
in Tristram Shandy, 243. 

Seven Letters written by Sterne, 535 

Sevigne, Mme. de, 286. 

Shakespeare, imitated, 60 ; quoted, 90 
mentioned, 481, 523. 

Shandy, meaning of the word, 188. 

Shandy H'all, described, 235-236; re 
decorated, 422-423; later history 
469; tablet to Sterne, 469. 

Sharp, Dr. Samuel, as "Mundungus' 
in Sentimental Journey, 435 and n 

Sharpe, Rev. Nathan, Sterne's school 
master, 22-23, 26. 

Shelburne, Earl of, 332; Sterne at his 
levee, 393; correspondence with, 420, 
433, 438, 439. 

Sherlock, Thomas, Bishop of London, 
224, 237. 

Shuter, Edward, actor, 393. 

Skelton Castle, described, 120-121; 
Sterne's last visit to, 425. See 
Stevenson, John Hall-. 

Sligniac, M., of Toulouse, 308. 

Smellie, Dr. William, 78, 80 and n, 
140. 

Smollett, Tobias, Humphry Clinker, 
126; Travels through France and 
Italy, 304, 319-320, 377, 379; meets 
Sterne, 319-320, 380; as "Smel- 
fungus" in Sentimental Journey, 



435-436, 447. See also Critical 
Review. 

Sommery, Mile, de, on Sentimental 
Journey, 454. 

Southwell, Lord, 391. 

Spence, Joseph, Crito, 213 and n. 

Spencer, John, first Viscount, friend- 
ship with Sterne, 248-249; dedica- 
tion of Tristram Shandy (V-VI), 
264, 265-266, 268, 525, 532; in 
Duke of York's set, 394; presents 
Sterne with a silver standish, 420, 
517 and n. 

Spencer, Dr. John, De Legibus, 138 

Stables, William, of York, 157, 158; 
in A. Political Romance, 165. 

Stanhope, , Consul of Algiers, 

299. 

Stanhope, Charles, 206. 

Stanhope, Sir William, 122, 439. 

Stanhope, Lady Anne, 395. 

Stanislas I., King of Poland, 274. 

Stanley, Edward, friend of Sterne, 
331 n. 

Stapfer, Paul, Laurence Sterne, 110; 
"unpublished fragment" by Sterne, 
144 and n, 145 ; records at Albi, 
489 n. 

Stapleford, the Sternes of, 4. 

Stapleton, Sir Miles, 75. 

Steele, Christopher, portrait of Sterne, 
110. 

Steele, Richard, 11, 407; Christian 
Hero, 227. 

Stern, Lewis, painter, 111 and n. 

Sterne, surname of, 4; early family- 
seats, 4 ; pedigrees, 11 n. 

Sterne, Agnes, mother of Laurence, 
marriage, 13 ; children and hard- 
ships, 13-16; at Clonmel, 16, 25, 
94, 97; at York, alleged neglect by 
son, vindication, 94-103 and n; 
reconciliation, 117; death, 183-184. 

Sterne, Catherine, sister of Laurence, 
15, 16, 25 ; quarrel with brother, 
94-103. 

Sterne, Dorothy, first wife of Richard 
Sterne of Halifax, 10. 

Sterne, Elizabeth, wife of the Arch- 
bishop, 8. 

Sterne, Elizabeth, wife of Laurence, 
appearance, 43, 110; marriage, 42- 
43, 44, 45-49; fortune, 50, 101; 
attack of insanity, 184-185, 207, 
233, 521; coolness towards husband, 
257; reconciliation, 260; joins hus- 
band in France, 293-307; remains 
abroad with daughter, 323 ; rumour* 



550 



INDEX 



of separation from husband, 333; 
visit from husband, 383-384; serious 
illness, 387; settles at Avignon, 391; 
hears of Sterne's infatuation for 
Mrs. Draper, 428 ; return to Cox- 
wold, 430-432 ; plans for a separate 
maintenance, 429, 431-432; illness 
and hallucinations, 457; adminis- 
tration of husband's estate, 470-472 ; 
purses for her benefit, 471, 488; 
publishes posthumous Sermons, 473- 
475 ; retires to Angouleme, 481 ; 
death at Albi, 489. 

Sterne, Esther, second wife of Richard 
Sterne of Halifax, 10. 

Sterne, Jaques, uncle of Laurence, 
birth, 11; ecclesiastical appoint- 
ments, 37, 68, 84; church-politician, 
38 and n, 69; aids Latirence, 38; 
pursuit of Roman Catholics and 
Jacobites, 70-71, 74-78; letters to 
the Duke of Newcastle, 83-84; quar- 
rel with Laurence, 87-103; death 
and will, 184 and n. 

Sterne, John, founder of Irish College 
of Physicians, 4. 

Sterne, John, Bishop of Clogher, son 
of the preceding, 4. 

Sterne, Laurence: ancestry, 3-11; 
father, 11-16; mother, 13-16; birth, 
13, 16; baptismal name, 16-17; 
childhood, brothers and sisters, 13- 
17; school, 18-25; love for military 
books, 24-25; Cambridge, 26-34; 
tutors, 27; associates, 27-28; read- 
ing, and burlesque of curriculum, 
29-33; degrees, 33; portrait by 
Ramsay, 34; first hemorrhage, 34, 
entries concerning Sterne in regis- 
ter of Jesus College, 34-35 and n, 
ordained deacon, 36; curate of 
St. Ives, 36-37; aided by uncle 
Jaques, 38; ordained priest, 38-39; 
Vicar of Sutton-on-Forest, 39 and 
n; entries in parish book, 40, 50- 
52 ; Prebendary of Givendale, 40 ; 
life at York, 41-42 ; courtship and 
marriage, 42-49; love letters, 46-49; 
Prebendary of North Newbald, 52 ; 
Vicar of Stillington, 52-54; conti- 
nental tour, 54-55 ; farming and 
purchases of land, 55-59, 115; as 
Parson Yorick, 59-63 ; relations with 
Philip Harland, 63-65; relations 
with Stephen Croft, 65-66; asso- 
ciated with uncle Jaques in politics, 
69, 71, 72; paragraph-writer, 72-74, 
77-78; caricatures Dr. Burton in 



Tristram Shandy, 80-81 ; violent 
hatred of Church of Rome, 81, 82; 
two notable sermons, 82, 84-86, 
530-531; persecuted by uncle Jaques, 
87-103 ; cathedral sermons, 88 and 
n, 89; commissaryships, 92-93, 158, 
166; alleged neglect of mother and 
sister, 93-94, 102 and n, 103, 517; 
vindication, 94-102 ; enclosures at 
Sutton, 105-106; painting portraits, 
107-112; portrait by Bridges, 110; 
friendship with Rev. John Blake, 
112-115; sermon on Herod, 116; 
anecdote, 117-118; excursions to 
Skelton Castle with the Demoniacs, 
119-129; racing, 124, 425; fiddling, 
126-127; jests, 128; facetious Latin 
epistle, 127-128; library of facetious 
and military books, 130-144; "un- 
published fragment", 144-149; a 
poem on the Unknown World, 149- 
151; other verse, 129, 151-152, 408; 
club at York, 153, 173 ; leases, land 
and tithes, 154; his part in quarrel 
between Dean Fountayne and Dr. 
Topham, 155, 157-159, 163, 176- 
177; Sessions Dinner, 158, 163, 
243, 244; A Political Romance, 164- 
169; Key to same, 169-173; ap- 
pended letters, 174-176; Topham 
silenced, 177 ; Romance suppressed, 
177; sketch of himself in the Ro- 
mance, 166, 170-171, 172, 173; 
Tristram Shandy (vols. I-II) com- 
posed, 178-181, published, 181-183; 
death of mother, 183-184; death of 
uncle Jaques, 184; illness of wife 
and daughter, 185 ; flirtation with 
Miss Fourmantelle, 185-187, 196, 
199, 203-204; depicts himself, 188, 
190; reception in London, 194-209; 
his apartments, 198 ; agreements 
with Dodsley, 195, 208 ; appointed 
to Coxwold, 200; portrait by Rey- 
nolds, 201 and n; second edition of 
Tristram Shandy, 202-203 ; sketch 
of Sterne in newspapers, 204 ; anec- 
dote, 206; visit to Windsor, 207- 
208; attacked and burlesqued, 210- 
220; Sermons (vols. I-II), pub- 
lished, 220-222; reception of, 222- 
225; borrowings, 225-227; de- 
scribed, 227-232; business at York 
and Sutton, 233-235; settlement at 
Coxwold, 235-237; correspondence 
with Warburton, 237-238; compo- 
sition and contents of Tristram 
Shandy (vols. Ill- IV), 235-245; 



INDEX 



551 



retort on his critics, 245-246; second 
visit to London, 246-256; Tristram 
Shandy (vols. III-IV), published, 
250-251 ; assailed by reviews, 251- 
253 ; sermon at Foundling Hospital, 
254-256; at Coxwold, 257-258; cor- 
onation sermon, 258-259; purchase 
of books, 259; clerum, 259; Tris- 
tram Shandy (vols. V-VI), 259-265; 
London visit, 264 et seq.; meets 
Dr. Johnson, 265-266; changes pub- 
lisher, 266-267; reviews, 267-268; 
illness, 268; reported dead, 269- 
270; journey to Paris, 268, 271- 
272 ; reception, 272-292 ; his Boswell, 
279-281 ; explains his personality, 
281-282; portrait by Carmontelle, 
288-289; illness, 289-290; Dutens's 
story, 290-292 ; prepares to settle 
at Toulouse, 293-294; wife and 
daughter summoned, 294-298; anec- 
dote, 298-299; illness, 299; journey 
to Toulouse via Auxerre, Lyons, 
Avignon, and Montpellier, 300-307 ; 
sojourn at Toulouse, 308-312; writ- 
ing Tristram Shandy and revising 
sermons, 310, 312-313; illness, 310; 
financial distress, 312, 314-315; 
trip to Bagneres, 313, 314, 316; 
sojourn at Montpellier, 316-323; 
meets Smollett, 319-320; illness, 321- 
322; returns to Paris, 323-326; 
sermon at English embassy, 326- 
327; clash with Hume, 327-328; 
return to England, 330; sits again 
to Reynolds, 331; York races, 331- 
332; at Scarborough, 332; Tristram 
Shandy (vols. VII-VIII), published, 
334, assailed, 335-336; laments 
absence of Garrick, 337-338; sub- 
scribers to forthcoming Sermons, 
338, 339; trip to Bath, 339 et seq.; 
friendship with Mrs. Vesey, 340- 
341; sits to Gainsborough, 341; at 
Lady Lepell's, 341; letter to Lady 
Percy, 342-343 and n; at Shandy 
Hall, preparing sermons for press, 

344, 348 ; parsonage at Sutton 
burned, 345-346 ; hemorrhages, 344, 
347; York races, 347-348; meets 
Miss Graeme, 348; amusing letters, 

345, 349; subscribers to Sermons 
(vols. III-IV), 350, published, 351, 
described, 351-359; journey through 
France and Italy, 361 et seq.; prepa- 
ration for, 338, 350; relation of 
the tour to the Sentimental Journey, 
360 et seq.; Sterne's appearance, 



360-361; Calais, 361-365; Montreuil, 
365-367; La Fleur, 366-367 et seq.; 
Paris, 367-372; anecdote, 371-372; 
poor Maria, 372-374; vintage dance, 
374-375; Lyons, 375; Pont-de-Beau- 
voisin, 375-376; mountain-passes, 
376; Turin, 377; Milan, 378-379; 
Florence, 379; Rome, 379-380; a 
winter at Naples, 380-381; Rome 
again, 381; bust by Nollekens, 381; 
journey home, 381-382 et seq.; visit 
to his wife, 383-384; Paris, 384; 
London, 384; return to Shandy Hall, 
depressed, 386; worried by illness 
of wife in France, 387; enclosure 
of Stillington Common, 387, 390; 
correspondence with Ignatius Sancho, 
387-388; last sermon in York Cathe- 
dral, 388-389; last vol. of Tristram 
Shandy written, 389-390; recovery 
of Mrs. Sterne, 390-391; visit to 
London, 392 et seq.; lodgings, 392; 
levees and dinners, 393 ; meets 
Arthur Lee and Franklin, 393-394; 
attentions of the Duke of York, 394; 
friendship with Commodore James 
and his wife, 395-396; attends Mrs. 
Cornelys's assembly, 397-398; pub- 
lication of Tristram Shandy (vol. 
IX), 398; its reception, 399-401; 
assailed in an anonymous letter to 
his archbishop, 399-400 ; subscribers 
for Sentimental Journey, 401-402 ; 
friendship with Mrs. Draper, 403 
et seq.; first meeting, 406; present 
of Sermons and Tristram Shandy, 
406 ; excursions together, 407 ; Mrs. 
Draper's letters and portrait, 407; 
Sterne's elegy, 408 ; offers his 
protection, 409-410 ; separation, 410- 
411 ; Sterne's account of the in- 
fatuation, 412 ; Journal to Eliza, 
412-415 et seq., 433-435; serious 
illness, 416-418; flirtation with 
Sheba, 419; journey home, 420- 
421; summer at Coxwold, 421-422; 
intrusion of Mrs. Draper's image, 
422-424, 427, 437-438; letter to 
Daniel Draper, 424-425; visits to 
Skelton Castle and Harrogate, 425; 
letter from Mrs. Draper, 425-426; 
visit to Scarborough, 426-427; 
offers of preferment, 426-427; return 
of wife and daughter, 428-432; 
Sentimental Journey, composed, 433- 
439; alterations in MS., 445-450; 
published, 450-451 ; praised at home 
and abroad, 452-455; severe hemor- 



552 



INDEX 



rhages, 438 ; last journey to London, 
438-439; lodgings crowded with 
friends, 442 ; associations with 
George Selwyn, 442-443 ; a walking- 
stick from Dr. Eustace of South 
Carolina, 443-444; last illness, 456 
et seq.; attentions of Beauclerk, 456, 
Lord Ossory, 456, Commodore 
James, 458, 460, Reynolds, 460, 
and others, 458, 461; last letter to 
Lydia, 457-458 ; last letter to Mrs. 
James, 458-459; death, 459-461; 
announcement, 461-462; Lessing's 
remark, 462, 512 ; funeral, 462- 
463; body stolen from grave, 463- 
465; inscriptions on tomb, 466-468; 
tablet at Shandy Hall, 469 ; adminis- 
tration of his goods, 470-472; debts 
liquidated by friends, 471 ; library, 
471 n; MSS., 472-473 and n, 487; 
posthumous Sermons, 473-479; Sen- 
timental Journey, continued by Hall- 
Stevenson, 479-480; projected bi- 
ography, 480-484; publication of 
correspondence and memoirs, 490- 
495 ; final sale of lands at Sutton, 
490 ; Sterne's last descendant, 495 ; 
Mrs. Draper's last words upon 
Sterne, 497; his ghost, 510; sum- 
mary, 511 et seq.; friendships, 
511-512; conversation, 512, 520; 
appearance and eyes, 513-514; fame, 
514; zest for life, 515; paganism, 
515-516; virtues and vices, 516; 
punctual in appointments, 516-517; 
sincerity, 518 ; volatile temperament, 
518-519; relations with women, 519- 
520; humour, 520-523; extant MSS, 
524-530; authentic works, 530-537. 
Sterne, Lydia, daughter of Laurence, 
birth, 59; at school, 185, 207; 
prank, 233; her father's amanuensis, 
260; illness, 289; accompanies 
mother to southern France, 293- 
307; remains with mother, 323; 
her father's tender letter from Paris, 
329 ; proposal of marriage, 345 ; 
life at Avignon, 391 ; returns home 
with mother, 430-432; her father's 
last letter, 457-458 ; publication of 
his Sermons, 473-475 ; her part in 
projected biography of her father, 
480-484; at Angouleme, 481-482; 
her marriage at Albi, 488-489 and 
n; death of husband, 490; visit to 
London and publication of her 
father's correspondence, 490-495, 



534-535; death at Albi, 495; also 
380, 407, 408, 413, 471, 505. 

Sterne, Margery, wife of Simon Sterne 
of Mansfield, 4. 

Sterne, Mary, wife of Simon Sterns 
of Halifax, 10. 

Sterne, Richard, Archbishop of York, 
great-grandfather of Laurence, ca- 
reer, 5-8 and n, 26. 

Sterne, Richard, of Elvington, cousin 
of Laurence, 25-26; his allowance 
to Laurence for Cambridge, 26, 27, 
34, 37. 

Sterne, Richard, of Halifax, uncle of 
Laurence, 10-11; takes charge of 
Laurence's education at school, 18, 
34 ; interest in local grammar 
schools, 21, 22; death, 11, 25. 

Sterne, Richard, of Kilvington, eldest 
son of Archbishop Sterne, 8-9. 

Sterne, Roger, father of Laurence, 
career and character, 11-16, 514. 

Sterne, Simon, of Mansfield, ancestor 
of Laurence, 4. 

Sterne, Simon, of Halifax, third son 
of the archbishop and grandfather 
of Laurence, 9, 10. 

Sterne, Timothy, cousin of Laurence, 
25-26. 

Sterne, William, of Cropwell-Butler, 
ancestor of Laurence, 4. 

Sterne, William, of Mansfield, second 
son of the Archbishop, 9. 

Stevenson, John Hall-, at Jesus Col- 
lege, 28-29; as Eugenius in Tris- 
tram Shandy, 62, 128, 189, 271; 
continental tour, 118; marriage. 
118; inherits Skelton Castle, 119; 
library, 119, 130; Crazy Tales, 120, 
128-129, 299, 309, 310; appear- 
ance and character, 119 n, 121- 
122 ; Sterne and the Demoniacs, 
122-129; Lyric Epistles, 211; visits 
and trips with Sterne, 331-332, 
425 ; sup together in London, 384, 
416; absent at Sterne's death, 463; 
rumour about Sterne's body, 464 
and n; raises purse for widow and 
daughter, 471 ; his continuation of 
Sentimental Journey, 480; projected 
Life of Sterne, 480-484; also 382, 
387, 420, 429, 473, 493, 522, 526, 
533. 

Stevinus, Nouvelle Maniere de Fortifi- 
cation, 142, 143. 

Stillington, Sterne appointed Vicar of, 
52-54; Enclosure Act, 333 and », 
387, 390. 



INDEX 



553 



Stormont, seventh Viscount, ambassa- 
dor at Vienna, 382. 

Stothard, Thomas, painter, 60. 

Stow-cum-Quy, the Sternes of, 4. 

Strahan, William, publisher, 474. 

Stratton, George, of Bombay, 410. 

Suard, Jean Baptiste, reviews Tris- 
tram Shandy, 276, 335, 336; his 
career, 279-280; admiration for 
Sterne, 280-282 and n, 287, 511- 
512; also 324. 

Suard, Mme. (wife of J. B. Suard), 
279, 280; on Sentimental Journey, 
454, 455 n. 

Suckling, Sir John, 270. 

Sukey Shandy, Miss, 214. 

Sunton's Coffee-House, York, Sterne's 
resort, 41, 153, 173, 184. 

Supplement to * * * Tristram Shandy, 
A, 215. 

Sutton-on-the-Forest, Sterne's parish, 
described, 39-40, 59; settlement at, 
50; parish registry, 40, 50-52, 59; 
Enclosure Act, 105-106 and n, 234- 
235, 490. 

Swift, Jonathan, Tale of the Tub, 134, 
136, 169, 213, 399; Swift and 
Stella, 45, 403; also 4, 179, 523. 

Symonds, John, with Sterne in Italy, 
380, 381, 528. 

Synopsis Gommunium Locorum, Sterne's 
exercise-book at school, 23. 

Tacitus, Sterne's opinion of, 29. 

Talbot, William, first Earl, 248. 

Tartaglia, Quesiti ed Invenzioni Di- 
verse, 142. 

Tavistock, Francis Russell, Marquis 
of, 290, 291, 325. 

Taylor, Jeremy, Holy Living and Holy 
Dying, 144. 

Temple, Richard, second Earl, 207. 

Tenison, Thomas, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, Baconiana, 138. 

Textus Boffensis, see Ernulf. 

Thackeray, quoted or referred to, 134, 
362, 453, 513, 519; on Sterne and 
Dutens, 292 ; on Sterne and Lady 
Percy, 343 n; on the flirtation with 
Mrs. Draper, 414 and n. 

Thayer, H. W., Sterne in Germany, 
446 n, 454 n. 

Theocritus, Sterne's opinion of, 29. 

Thicknesse, Philip, on M. Dessein, 362 
and n. 

Thirty-Fourth, or Cumberland Regi- 
ment of Foot, its colonels and 



Roger Sterne's service in, 11-16 ; 
history of, 12 n; Laurence Sterne's 
memories of, 17. 

Thompson, George, of York, 79 and n. 

Thoresby, Ralph, Diary, 9 and n. 

Thornhill, Thomas, of London, 297, 
298, 302, 320; Sterne with him at 
Paris, 323; Sterne his guest in 
London, 330, 331. 

Thrale, Mrs., see Piozzi, Mrs. 

Tillotson, John, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, sermons, 144, 224, 225, 227, 
229, 353. 

Times of India, 503 n. 

Todd, John, York bookseller, 131. 

Tollot, M., of Geneva, on Sterne, 283 
and n, 320-321; Sterne his guest in 
Paris, 323 ; goes to England with 
Sterne, 330, 331. 

Tooke, John Home, with Sterne at 
Lyons, 375 and n. 

Topham, Edward (son of Francis), 
161. 

Topham, Dr. Francis, of York, 91, 93; 
offices, 155-156; quarrel with Dean 
Fountayne and Sterne, 156-164; 
pamphlets in the quarrel, 163 ; 
silenced by Sterne in A Political 
Romance, 164-177; introduced into 
Tristram Shandy, 189, 244; grants 
letters for administration of Sterne's 
goods, 470. 

Torricelli, 143. 

Toulouse, Sterne's life at, 308-315. 

Townshend, Charles, 248. 

Trail, Dr. James, 326. 

Translations of Sterne's works, 453- 
455. 

Tristram Shandy (vols. I-II), com- 
position, 178-181 ; publication, 181- 
183 ; local interest in the book, 
187-189; contents, 190-192; first 
reviews, 192-193; defended against 
criticism, 179, 193-194 and n; re- 
ception in London, 195 ; second 
edition, 195, 201-203, 208; third 
and fourth editions, 203 ; attacked 
and burlesqued, 211-215; as viewed 
by literary men, 216-218, by moral- 
ists, 218-220; (vols. III-IV) com- 
posed, 235-237, 246; contents, 
238-246; published, 250-251; at- 
tacked, 250, 251-253; (vols. V-VI), 
259-264; published by Becket, 265- 
266; dedication, 265; praised, 267- 
268, 269; sale, 295-296, 312; 
(vols. VII- VIII) begun at Tou- 
louse, 310-311, 312-313; design, 



554 



INDEX 



314, 435; completed, 333-334, pub- 
lished, 334-335; reception, 335-337; 
(vol. IX) written, 388, 389-390; 
published, 398; dedication, 399; 
reprobated by moralists, 399-400 ; 
eloquence, 401; Sterne's last words 
on Tristram Shandy, 443-444 ; ex- 
tant manuscripts, 524-525 ; first edi- 
tions, 531-533; imitations, 213-214, 
215, 254, 264, 265, 267. 

Tristram Shandy, A Third Volume of, 
by John Carr, 215. 

Tristram Shandy at Banelagh, 214. 

Tristram Shandy in a Reverie, 214. 

Trotter, Lawson, of Skelton, Jacobite, 
118, 299, 324, 325. 

Turner, Charles, of Kirkleatham, 320, 
332, 425. 

Turner, Cholmley, 38, 75. 

Turney, John, of Leek Wotton, quoted, 
19 

Tutors of Sterne, 27. 

Universal Register, 219 n. 

Unknown World, The, 149-151, 152, 
536. 

Unpublished Fragment, 144-149. 537. 

Unpublished Letters of L. Sterne, 535. 

Upper Ossory, second Earl of, requests 
Reynolds to paint Sterne, 201; in 
Paris with Sterne, 371; later friend- 
ship, 393; friend of the Jameses, 
406; announces Sterne's death, 461. 

Vallis Eboracensis, see Gill, Thomas. 

Van Coehorn, Nouvelle Maniere de 
Fortifier les Places, 142. 

Vanbrugh and Cibber's Journey to 
London, recast by Sterne, 312. 

Vansittart, Robert, 249, 250. 

Varennes, M., 365, 366. 

Vauban, Prestre de, De VAttaque et 
de la Defense des Places, 142. 

Vence, Mme. de, 286, 287. 

Yergil, Sterne's fondness for, 24, 29. 

Vesey, Mrs. Elizabeth, Sterne's friend- 
ship with, 339-341, 426, 519, 527, 
534, 535. 

Ville, Chevalier de, Les Fortifications, 
142. 

Voltaire, Candide, 144; praise of 
Sterne's Sermon on Conscience, 276, 
277, 518-519; Sterne's projected 
visit to, 323; Olympie, 324; sub- 
scribes to Sermons, 350. 

Walker, Abraham, pilot, 411. 



Walker, Rev. John, Vicar of Sutton, 
50. 

Waller, Edmund, 403. 

Walpole, Horace, on Sterne's neglect! 
of mother, 102; on Tristram Shandy, 
195, 216-217 and n, 251; on Sterne's 
dullness, 371; on Sentimental Jour- 
ney, 452; receives news of Sterne's 
death, 461; entertained by his let- 
ters, 493; also 67, 119, 198, 207, 
278, 325, 379 and n, 395 and n. 

Wanly (Wanley), Rev. Francis, Preb. 
of York, 227 n, 524. 

Warburton, William, friendship with 
Sterne, 196-198; purse of guineas, 
197, 207, 210-211; correspondence 
with Sterne, 212, 237-238, 493; 
repudiates Sterne, 248 and n, 249, 
267 and n, 511 ; in Tristram Shandy, 
251, 267, 399; edition of Pope, 279. 

Ward, Caesar, York printer, 73, 131, 
174, 182, 530, 531. 

Ward, Dr. William, of York, 156, 157, 
158, 159. 

Watson, Rev. Daniel, letter on Sterne, 
103 n. 

Watts-Dunton, Theodore, on Sterne, 
522. 

Welsh, Col. James, Reminiscences, 509. 

West, Benjamin, painter, 456. 

Wharton, Thomas, 203, 216 and n. 

Whatley, George, 102 n, 254-255 and 
n, 536. 

Whitefoord Papers, anecdotes of Sterne, 
43 n, 177 n, 463 n. See Croft, John. 

Whitehead, Paul, 122 

Whitehead, William, 222. 

Whitehill, Mrs., aunt of Mrs. Draper, 
410. 

Whitehill, Thomas, uncle of Mrs. 
Draper, 503-505. 

Wilford, Miss, dancer, 343 and n. 

Wilkes, John, 122, 123, 222, 249, 
362 n, 394, 471 and n, 474, 530; 
with Sterne in Paris, 323-324 and 
n, 370, 371; coolness between them, 
474; project for biography of Sterne, 
480-484; acquaintance with Mrs. 
Draper, 506-507, 508. 

Wilkinson, Richard, curate, 40, 51, 54, 
92, 200. 

Wilkinson, Tate, actor, 42, 43. 

Williams, George James ("Gilly"), 
392. 

Willis's Current Notes, 208 n, 465 n, 
471 n. 

Wilmot, Sir Edward, 194. 

Winchelsea, Earl of, 199. 



INDEX 



555 



Wodhull, Michael, HI. 

Wollaston, William, Sterne's borrow- 
ings from, 227 and n, 478. 

Woodhouse, , 311, 344-345. 

Woodhouse, George, of York, 158, 244. 

Wordsworth, Christopher, 32 n. 

Works of Sterne, see the Appendix. 

Worthington, Dr. William, Preb. of 
York, 468. 

Wright, Miss, 343 n. 

Wycherley, William, plays, 29. 

Xenophon, Cyropcedia, 261. 

Yorick, the name assumed by Sterne, 



3, 55 ; as depicted in Tristram 
Shandy, 59-63, 104, 242, 243, 260. 

YoricJc's Sentimental Journey Con- 
tinued, 480. 

York, Edward Augustus, Duke of, at- 
tentions to Sterne, 207, 394-395, 
402 ; present at Sterne's last sermon, 
389. 

York Courant, quoted or cited, 41 n, 
42 n, 63 n, 64 n, 71 n, 73, 74, 75, 
113, 155, 157 n, 468 n, 'kiln. 

YorJc Journal or Protestant Courant, 
Sterne's contributions to, 73, 77. 

Young, Edward, Dean of Salisbury, 
sermons, 144, 225. 



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